Skip to main content

Cartography

By artfully illustrating the boundaries of colonial powers, mapmakers in the 1700s helped define what our New World would become.

By artfully illustrating the boundaries of colonial powers, mapmakers in the 1700s helped define what our New World would become.

A team from American Heritage helped document some of the most important maps of the Revolution — still stored in the medieval English castle where scenes from Harry Potter were later filmed.

After the French and Indian War, Britain reimagined North America and created hundreds of maps to bring about that vision after gaining vast new territories

During negotiations to end the Seven Years’ War, Great Britain’s diplomats used the leverage that came with conquests in Canada, India, Africa, and the West Indies to gain large territorial cessions from France and Spain.

Another frontier closes as the mapping of America approaches completion

JUNE 12,1989: The number of cartographers who still go into the field to compile maps for the U.S.

Wherever you go in search of history, there’s a good chance the first thing you reach for will be a road map. And road maps have a history too.

On Thanksgiving Day in 1895 the Chicago Times-Herald sponsored a fifty-four-mile road race from Jackson Park to Waukegan and on to Lincoln Park. The prize was five thousand dollars.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this magazine of trusted historical writing, now in its 75th year, and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate