Illinois History Research Guide: Digital Collections - Maps

The Library of Congress has several digital collections related to the Civil War, including photographs by Matthew Brady. Their digital map collection includes maps by Jedediah Hotchkiss, a Confederate Army topographical engineer, as well as other maps produced during or after the War.

A collection of historical digital maps from a wide variety of sources, including atlases, globes and single sheet maps.

The U.S. Geological Survey issued printed topographic maps for nearly 125 years. This is a digitized collection of USGS historic topographic maps.

The Land Ordinance of 1785 established the Public Land Survey System for the United States. This site contains digitized versions of the township plats for Illinois showing the geography, vegetation and other features that existed in Illinois prior to settlement.

This site contains links to county land cover maps developed from the Illinois Township Plats. A poster showing land cover for the entire state of Illinois can be purchased from the Illinois Natural History Survey.

A collection of town and city maps for the state of Illinois. Sanborn maps show the building outlines, business names, street names, property boundaries and other information. These maps are black & white, so the building construction information is not available.

This website, from the University of Illinois, provides access to digitized maps showing 400 years of historical development in Illinois and the Northwest Territory. It contains maps from the collections of the University of Illinois and the Newberry Library.

Warner & Beers. Atlas Of The State Of Illinois: to which are added various general maps, history, statistics and illustrations. Chicago: Union Atlas Co. 1876. This early atlas of Illinois includes a map of each county and additional information.

A digital collection of historical aerial photography for Illinois.

Bourquin, F., (Eds.), 1893. Plat book of McDonough County, Illinois. Chicago: Occidental Pub. Co. A digitized version of the 1893 Plat Book for McDonough County, Illinois from the Library of Congress' American Memory Collection.