A popular collection in the NYPL's Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, and one of my personal favorites, is the county atlas series, most of which was published following the passage of a federal law commemorating the centennial of the United States. We have recently digitized 43 atlases covering New York and New Jersey from our collection of more than 420 titles printed before 1900. See this page for a list of digital holdings from this series.

Their pages are filled not only with wonderfully detailed maps on the national, state, county, township and city level, but also with interesting, flat perspective engravings depicting local business districts, prominent estates and farms. Business directories sometimes accompany the map pages that, along with the drawings, provide a glimpse into local social and economic geography of the 19th century. They also give us an idea of who provided funding for the production of these subscription based publications.

I've always been fascinated with landscapes changing through time as seen though the lens of the map. Shorelines, especially where there are lots of waves and tides, are particularly interesting things in that they are so clearly dynamic. These fire insurance maps of Coney Island, created between 1880 and 1907 document those changes beautifully. In addition to those covering Coney Island, the NYPL has digitized close to 2000 maps at this level of detail for all five boroughs of New York City.

G.W. Bromley, Atlas of the entire City of Brooklyn, 1880, Plate 35

E. Robinson, Robinson's atlas of Kings County, New York, 1890, Plate 20

G.W. Bromley, Atlas of the Borough of Brooklyn, 1907, Plate 28