Georeferencing maps from George III’s atlases and albums

The second tranche of maps from George III’s Topographical Collection have been released onto the Georeferencer platform recently and the platform is already a hive of activity! British Library colleagues have selected the 7891 images that depict maps from the 32,000 that comprise George III’s collection of atlases and albums of views, plans, diagrams, reports and surveys, produced between 1550 and 1820. You can find out more about the images themselves in this blog post.

Jansson Britain and Ireland map georeferenced

Georeferenced map of Great Britain and Ireland from Jan Jansson's Novus Atlas, 1649 (Maps 9.TAB.4) available here (https://britishlibrary.georeferencer.com/maps/18318d9e-f7ad-4265-8d55-05fe59875567/view)

There are some beautiful maps to georeference including multi-sheet maps in loose or bound format including Turgot’s plan of Paris, Morgan’s map of London, Peter Andre’s Essex, Fry & Jefferson’s Virginia, Pratt’s Ireland and Müller’s Bohemia.

If you are new to the Georeferencer head over to our ‘how to use’ page (https://www.bl.uk/help/how-to-use-the-georeferencer) where you can find detailed instructions.

As ever, please do note that it might not be possible to georeference all the images as it is very likely that some plans of mines, topographic views, images of the moon and other oddities may have crept in. I would be grateful if you could pass on any URLs for such material to [email protected] and I will try to remove them. Thanks for your help with this, much appreciated.

I hope you enjoy georeferencing the maps, why not head over to the platform (http://britishlibrary.georeferencer.com/start) and give it a go!

Selected Georeferencer links to maps mentioned in the text:

Turgot’s plan of Paris (

http://british-library.georeferencer.com/id/mapsu4utabu22up002

http://british-library.georeferencer.com/id/mapsu4utabu22up005

http://british-library.georeferencer.com/id/mapsu4utabu22up008

http://british-library.georeferencer.com/id/mapsu4utabu22up011

)

Morgan’s map of London (

http://british-library.georeferencer.com/id/mapsu175utu2u1u9

http://british-library.georeferencer.com/id/mapsu175utu2u1u10

http://british-library.georeferencer.com/id/mapsu175utu2u1u11