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A Stranger Quest

Documentary - Art Film

For David Rumsey, maps constitute the fabric of memory. They carry images of boundless worlds and the people who live there — past, present, and even the future. In the film A Stranger Quest by Andrea Gatopoulos, David takes us on a journey through time and space as he recalls why he started collecting. Over decades the collection grew into the intricate, innovative, and intimate story of his life and all the lives that have touched him.

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Composite: Carta del' itinerarj militari da Bologna a tutto il Regno di Napoli.;Rizzi Zannoni, Giovanni Antonio (1736-1814);1808;6854.037 Composite: Carta del' itinerarj militari da Bologna a tutto il Regno di Napoli.;Rizzi Zannoni, Giovanni Antonio (1736-1814);1808;6854.037
Le Tour du Monde en un Clin d'Oeil;Scott, M.M.; Vierge, Daniel;1876;8030.000 Le Tour du Monde en un Clin d'Oeil;Scott, M.M.; Vierge, Daniel;1876;8030.000
Topographical Chart of the Bay of Narraganset.;Blaskowitz, Charles; Faden, William, 1750?-1836;1777;3951.001 Topographical Chart of the Bay of Narraganset.;Blaskowitz, Charles; Faden, William, 1750?-1836;1777;3951.001
8500 Every Building On The Sunset Strip;Ruscha, Edward;1966;16172.015 8500 Every Building On The Sunset Strip;Ruscha, Edward;1966;16172.015
Le Nouveau Mexique appelé aussi Nouvelle Grenade et Marata. Avec Partie de Californie ...;Nolin, Jean Baptiste, 1648-1708; Coronelli, Vincenzo (1650-1718); Du Tralage, Jean Nicolas, -169;1688;14353.050 Le Nouveau Mexique appelé aussi Nouvelle Grenade et Marata. Avec Partie de Californie ...;Nolin, Jean Baptiste, 1648-1708; Coronelli, Vincenzo (1650-1718); Du Tralage, Jean Nicolas, -169;1688;14353.050

Browse 144,000 Maps and Images in LUNA Viewer Visit David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford Library View Maps Recently Added to Online Collection

Welcome to the David Rumsey Map Collection. Here you can explore maps through a variety of viewers. Read the Blog to learn more about collection highlights, such as Urbano Monte's manuscript world map from 1587. Visit the physical collection at the David Rumsey Map Center at the Stanford University Library. Or take a virtual tour of the Map Center, which hosts events such as the recent Barry Lawrence Ruderman Conference on Cartography : Indigenous mapping.

The historical map collection has over 144,000 maps and related images online. The collection includes rare 16th through 21st century maps of North America , South America , Europe, Asia, Africa , Australia, Antarctica, the Pacific , the Arctic , and the World . The online map collection is a searchable database that allows you to make your own journeys into spatial representations of the past. Here you can see the history of cartography through primary sources from 1500 into the 21st century.

NEW: Random Browse the collection (desktop and tablet only). 250 images at a time. Refresh the link to see 250 more. We invite you to get pleasurably lost.

Newspaper Maps Imaginary Maps Ethnography Title Pages Art Maps Pacific
Views Timelines Aerial Photographs Automobile Maps Composite Maps Airlines
Mountains Rivers Space Manuscript Climate Games and Puzzles Ottoman Maps
World The Americas Celestial Maritime Charts U.S. Civil War Antarctica
Data Visualization Cities Globes Atlases Africa Children's Maps
Pictorial Maps Asia Europe Geology Maps Arctic United States

Advanced search allows refined inquiries for precise results, while browsing encourages serendipitous exploration, honoring the legacy of library shelves. Popular collection categories include data visualization, celestial maps , atlases, globes, school geography, maritime charts, city atlases, pocket maps, children's maps , and manuscript maps . Subject and place examples: Pictorial , Geology, California, New York City,U.S. Civil War, Afghanistan, Moon, Mountains and Rivers, Migration, Languages, Religions, Railroads, Climate, Agriculture, Economics, and Zoological. Browse search facets: What, Where, Who, When . The collection supports the study of topics such as history, ethnography, technology, environmental science, genealogy, and art. Learn more

View 3 Panoramas of original Collection Space Browse Lists of the Collection's many Atlases Explore - Georeferencer v4 Launched

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Dec 20 2025

In 1647 Johannes Hevelius published Selenographia in Gdańsk, Poland, depicting the Moon’s phases across 40 plates. The first lunar atlas, it set the standard for decades and ranks among the finest scientific books of the 17th century. https://t.co/sYmFKFHevJ https://t.co/pIejOiifDg

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Nov 7 2025

"Pacific Watershed: Land of Contrasts" (Richard Edes Harrison, 1945) — A dramatic bird’s-eye map of the American West showing the vast Pacific drainage system from the Columbia River to the Colorado and Great Basin. Highlights the region’s extreme contrasts—glaciers, deserts, https://t.co/UNTCsgNoeL

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Nov 7 2025

Simms Campbell’s 1933 "A Night-Club Map of Harlem" - a witty, vibrant portrait of the 1930s Harlem Renaissance. Created by the first nationally prominent Black cartoonist, it spotlighted clubs like the Cotton Club & Savoy Ballroom. Now exceedingly rare. https://t.co/KJZhAMyMpB https://t.co/wSOl5HDPy2

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Oct 22 2025

MacKinnons Brook, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia - Drone footage, Oct 21, 2025. Left house restored by David Rumsey in 1988; right built by Rumsey in 1964. Both now part of an 8,000-acre conservation area of Nova Scotia Nature Trust. 5 km of roadless coastline. 25 km of trails. https://t.co/fahwbsJhir

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Sep 28 2025

Explore the oil geopolitics of the 1960s with Brian Orchard Lisle’s detailed 1965 "Map of the Near and Middle East Oil." A striking artifact of petroleum history, it charts fields, pipelines & power. https://t.co/qzQqOVqmQu 7th edition of the Map of Near and Middle East Oil. https://t.co/vHh2cMz5ll

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Sep 11 2025

The Computer Tree II (1979, Management Information Corp.). A data visualization chart of computer evolution from Babbage & ENIAC through IBM, DEC, Fujitsu—branches of tech growth that might one day be called AGI’s roots. https://t.co/lWJlOr6j18 https://t.co/VoQfRM7DQj

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Aug 21 2025

Try our new AI Search Assist. Find historical information on maps. Translate language from maps or map descriptions. Ask with whole sentences - makes search a conversation. Examples: find maps with compass roses or show maps that use propaganda. More at https://t.co/VpA72pAN53 https://t.co/zojJXIgDn5

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Aug 7 2025

1,249 likes, 46 comments - jamenpercy.burn on August 7, 2025: "‘The Speed of the Earth’ by Kevin Kelly @kevin2kelly and David Rumsey was a fascinating artwork and bit of tech. What looks like just a flashing set of lights nearly a mile long, was far more than that. The lights are programmed precisely at the speed of the Earths rotation, each Independently lighting up with a pulse of light using GPS. This gave the viewer a visible representation of how fast we are spinning through space on this crazy round rock. The sheer sense of scale is mind blowing and an excellent piece viewed from above! #thankslarry #burningman #burningman2024 #blackrockcity @industwetrust @burningman #curiousandcurious #burningmanart #brc #brc2024 #10principles @burningmanphotos @burningman_photos #blackrockcity #mavic3 #drone #aerial #fromwhereidrone".

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Mar 21 2025

TeleGeography, Inc. has been mapping global telecommunications since 1996. Their maps illustrate the remarkable growth of the Earth’s communication exoskeleton, formed by undersea cables and satellites. Explore 37 of their maps at: https://t.co/dQhm2gt4mS https://t.co/hqeZ87Abxn

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Feb 2 2025

1877 Eadweard Muybridge Panorama of San Francisco in 11 sheets. One of the landmarks of 19th-century American photography, and an iconic panoramic image of San Francisco, accompanied by the rare Key to Muybridge's work. High resolution image https://t.co/FwYuIua98P https://t.co/VoGr3Igb1L

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Sep 29 2024

60,000 new maps, views, texts, titles, diagrams, globes, timelines and more have been added to search for Text on Maps - doubling to 120,000 items from the original 60,000 we started with a year ago. Over 175 million words indexed! Try searching for Cairo https://t.co/481hMN9ahN https://t.co/jfG40qk2OQ

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Sep 24 2024

The Speed of the Earth, lights move at rotational speed of earth on axis, 1156ft/sec at lat 40.79571, lon -119.18323. Using GPS to time the flashes. A moving map. https://t.co/QZokOjB07V

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Aug 31 2024

"The Speed of the Earth" installation at Burning Man 2024 by Kevin Kelly and David Rumsey. A nearly mile long line of 30 solar powered LED strobes pulsing at the rotational speed of the earth, 784 mph. Lights use GPS to determine when to flash. Drone video at 400 ft elevation. https://t.co/sqibPJd3J1

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Aug 8 2024

Otto Neurath, Gerd Arntz, 1929, Die Bunte Welt. (The colorful world : Pictorial statistics for the youth). Brilliant data visualizations show school children the ethnic, religious, industrial, agricultural, political, and climatic variations of the world. https://t.co/gdw7RC6dqj https://t.co/25Olvv1lWF

David Rumsey
@DavidRumseyMaps
Aug 4 2024

Rand McNally made Air Trails maps for every U.S. state starting in 1929. Similar to their Auto Trails maps, the Air Trails maps showed the new air routes and airports serving them. They remain a record of the early air age in America, now mostly vanished. https://t.co/61oePZ4SiU https://t.co/dZPW3dUDlb

urbano monte's planispere 1587

Largest Early World Map - Monte's 10 ft. Planisphere of 1587

An extraordinary 60 sheet manuscript world map made in 1587 by Urbano Monte has been added to the David Rumsey Map Collection at Stanford University. At 10 foot square, this map or planisphere is the largest known early map of the world. It was hand drawn by Monte in Milan, Italy, and only one other manuscript copy exists. The digitally joined 60 sheet map image below is the first time the map Monte made has been seen as one unified map - as Monte intended - in the 430 years since it was created. See all the individual sheets here.

Monte's map reminds us of why historical maps are so important as primary resources: the north polar azimuthal projection of his planisphere uses the advanced scientific ideas of his time; the artistry in drawing and decorating the map embodies design at the highest level; and the view of the world then gives us a deep historical resource with the listing of places, the shape of spaces, and the commentary interwoven into the map. Science, art, and history all in one document. Until now, Monte’s manuscript map was seen as a series of 60 individual sheets. The only assembled version is the small single page key sheet of the series. Now that we have joined all 60 sheets digitally, we can appreciate in a new way the extraordinary accomplishment that Monte made. The assembled map, just over 10 feet in diameter, is one of the largest—if not the largest—world maps made in the 16th century. The degree of detail and decoration is stunning and the entire production is surely unique in the history of cartographic representation. Read Full Blog Post

Improved georeferencer v4

Fix Location of a Map

Georeferencer v4 is an improved and updated version of our prior Georeferencer v3. It allows you to overlay historic maps on modern maps or other historic maps. The overlaid maps reveal changes over time and enable map analysis and discovery. You can choose your own maps to georeference by Searching LUNA and using the Georeference This Map button or help us georeference the entire online map library using our Random Map link to georeference maps in our First Pilot Project of 6,000 maps of major cities and regions. Users who georeference the most maps will be recognized in the bar displays below. Recently Georeferenced maps can be viewed by image or by location.

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featured app - maprank search

The MapRank search tool enables geographical searching of the collection by map location and coverage, in a Google Map window. Pan and zoom the Google Map to the area of the world you want maps of, and the results will automatically appear as a scrollable list of maps with thumbnail images in the right side window. The maps in the right side list are ranked by coverage, with the maps that have coverage closest to your search window listed at the top. Mousing over any map in the list will show the map's coverage as a light red rectangle on top of the Google Map. Clicking on a map in the list will open it in the Luna Browser. You can filter your results with the When timeline, the What or Who keyword text window, and the Map scale windows, as well as search by place name in the Find a place window. Learn more

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Luna Imaging

LUNA is a web-hosted software solution developed to display, manage and preserve all types of digital archive collections, image collections, special collections and library collections.

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Reproductions

Buy prints through LUNA Viewer.
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Apps

AR Globe
Try an augmented reality experience with historical globes.
Download the AR Globe App

Globes 1.2 for Apple Vision Pro
Explore the most beautiful globes from the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford Libraries.
Download the app for your Apple Vision Pro

Acknowledgements

Webby Award winner in Technical Achievement

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