Maps and Geographic Information Systems

Maps and GIS Overview

The Maps section supports the basic research and instructional needs of UIC by making accessible a cartographic materials collection of over 179,000 maps, 1,300 atlases, 4,000 aerial photographs, a small collection of map-related reference books, plus microforms as well as digital data. Most of the maps, aerial photographs and geographic information systems (GIS) data files are housed on the third floor of the Daley Library.

The Library Catalog is the starting point for your maps research. Reference help is available in the Maps section or at the reference desk on the second floor.

• Maps and Aerial Photographs Research Guide
  
• Geography and GIS Research Guide
• Search the Library Catalog
• Make an appointment or Ask A Librarian  

Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases and Other Property History Resources

• Sanborn Maps of Illinois
  
• Discover more about Chicago architecture through the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, Landmarks Division
• Research the history of your house

Aerial Photos

The Maps section has one of the most comprehensive and publicly available aerial photograph collections for the City of Chicago and its surrounding metropolitan area. The collection primarily documents the Chicago region in the years from the mid-1950s to the early 2000s.

• Indexes and guides to aerial photos research

Access to Maps and GIS

UIC-affiliated users can check out most maps for a one-week loan period. Rare and antiquarian maps must be used the the Special Collections reading room.

• Libraries and Hours
• Borrow and Renew
• Find multimedia maps, GIS, atlases and aerial photos

Rare and Antiquarian Maps and Atlases

The Special Collections Department at the Daley Library houses selected cartographic materials in both sheet map and atlas format. Nearly all of these are printed rather than manuscript items and were published prior to 1900. The collections focus on four geographic areas:

• Chicago: The "Lawrence J. Gutter Collection of Chicagoana" includes selected maps of the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois, and adjacent areas. Most date from the nineteenth century with a few Chicago items from the early twentieth century.
• Illinois: In addition to the Illinois materials mentioned in "Chicago," there is a small collection of nineteenth-century maps of Illinois. These are small-scale maps that portray the state on one sheet.
• The Great Lakes: These maps depict the Great Lakes Region during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Besides providing information about this region, these maps exemplify the work of notable European cartographers of the period. Most maps cover the entire region or part of the region on one sheet.
• Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire: The geographic focus of this collection is continental Europe, between the Rhine River and the Ural Mountains (east-west) and the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea (north-south), with limited coverage of the adjacent areas. The maps range in date from the late sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. The maps are small-scale showing either a region or a state, e.g., Bohemia, generally on one sheet.
• Find information about the Special Collections Department