Map Warper
Digital Research Projects
The New York Public Library is developing and executing a visionary strategy for digitization, digital preservation, and access. The Library stewards rapidly growing collections of digitized and born-digital collection items, and it works to make these collections easier to discover, sample, use, and reuse in more creative ways.
Learn about Map Warper below.
Explore our other current and previous projects and learn about our Digital Research Strategy for 2021–2024.
Map Warper
Status: Archived
Launched: 2012
NYPL is home to one of the world’s premier map collections, including more than 433,000 sheet maps, and 20,000 books and atlases, published between the 15th and 21st centuries. More than 20,000 of these items have been digitized and are available through the Library’s Digital Collections. The Map Warper is a free online tool that enables you to align digital images of historical maps with their present-day locations through a process called georectification, or "warping" maps. This tool is for everyone: librarians, students, teachers, map lovers, history buffs, artists, and researchers.
As of April 2021, Mapwarper will no longer be updated by NYPL and has been be archived. This means all embedded views utilizing Mapwarper will no longer work once the site is archived. However, all contributions and data have been retained by the Library for future use and research.
Photo: Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. "Map of New-York Bay and Harbor and the environs" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. Learn more.
