Atlases and Carto-bibliographies

One sub-category of general reference and bibliographic resources provides researchers with general coverage in a cartographic format on a variety of historical and cultural aspects of American Indian studies.

Atlases

The following materials link to fuller bibliographic information about each title in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.

Comparative studies of North American Indians. by Harold E. Driver and William C. Massey
Call Number: Q11 .P6 n.s., vol. 47, pt. 2
Published/Created: 1957
Published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (New Series, vol. 47, pt. 2), this work contains 162 map illustrating broad generalizations about the geographic distribution of aspects of subsistence, material culture, economics, and social organization of North American Indians.
Atlas of Ancient America by Michael Coe; Dean Snow; Elizabeth Benson
Call Number: E61 .C66 1986
ISBN: 0816011990
Published/Created: 1986-10-01
Although primarily text, this work includes several maps depicting the climate, physical environment and cultural groupings of pre-contact American Indians.
Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History by Helen H. Tanner (Editor); Miklos Pinther (Illustrator)
Call Number: E78.G7 A87 1987
ISBN: 0806115157
Published/Created: 1987-01-15
Focusing on the Great Lakes region, this work includes thirty-three maps showing Indian battle sites, land cessions, and disease epidemics, as well as a series of maps depicting the changes in village sites and tribal distribution between the lat prehistoric period and 1870.
Atlas of American Indian Affairs by Francis P. Prucha
Call Number: G1201.E1 P7 1991
ISBN: 0803236891
Published/Created: 1990-12-01
Edited by Father Francis Paul Prucha, a foremost scholar of the American West and United States policy towards Native Americans, this atlas of 109 maps illustrates major aspects of federal Indian policy. Maps are grouped by series to cover the following subjects: U.S. census enumeration of American Indians by states, counties, and standard metropolitan statistical areas for the period 1890-1980; Indian land cessions from 1784 to 1904; historical and current Indian reservations; social services; the locations of military posts for the period 1789-1895, as well as the distribution of army troops at selected dates; the changing nature of the Indian frontier; and sites of major uprisings and wars. Extensive notes describe the maps and provide sources for further research.
Atlas of the North American Indian by Carl Waldman
Call Number: G1106.E1 W3 2009
ISBN: 9780816068586
Published/Created: 2009-02-01
This third edition of the Atlas of the North American Indian contains more than 120 full-color, detailed maps depicting various topics such as cultural and linguistic distribution, migrations, wars, settlement sites, and aspects of social issues. It also includes a chronology of native prehistory and history, lists of native nations of the United States and Canada with languages and locations, and a gazetteer of major native place names in North America.
Atlas of Indian Nations by National Geographic Editors; Anton Treuer
Call Number: G1106.E1 N3 2013
ISBN: 9781426211607
Published/Created: 2014-10-07
This encyclopedic atlas, organized by region, includes 110 archival, physical, and large-scale regional maps illustrating pre-historic distribution, languages, European encounters, settlements, wars, migrations, commerce, and missions. Each chapter concludes with brief tribal histories, while historical maps and text highlight significant events in Native American history.

Carto-bibliographies

The following works, some of which are available via the Library's website, list maps and atlases within the collections of the Geography and Map Division, and include cartographic information of value for Native American studies. All can be examined in the Geography and Map Reading Room. Each title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.

United States atlases; a list of national, state, county, city, and regional atlases in the Library of Congress by Le Gear, Clara Egli
Call Number: Z881 .U5 1950at
Published/Created: 1950
A older bibliography containing descriptions of some 1,400 county atlases dating from the late nineteenth century, with some including detailed coverage of Indian lands. County atlases acquired since 1950 can be searched on the LC online catalog.
Electronic copy available from HathiTrust External
Maps showing explorers' routes, trails & early roads in the United States; an annotated list. Compiled by Richard S. Ladd. by Library of Congress
Call Number: Z6027.U5 U56
Published/Created: 1962
This is an older but still useful list of maps, chiefly in the division's uncataloged collections, that depict routes, trails, and roads in the United States, many of which are associated with Native American history.
Electronic copy available from HathiTrust External
Land ownership maps, a checklist of nineteenth century United States county maps in the Library of Congress. Compiled by Richard W. Stephenson. by Library of Congress
Call Number: Z6027.U5 U54
Published/Created: 1967
A checklist with bibliographic descriptions of nearly 1,500 country land ownership maps, some of which will include coverage of Indian lands. All maps are available through the Library of Congress Website as digital images.
Maps and charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789 : a guide to the collections in the Library of Congress. by John R. Sellers and Patricia Molen Van Ee
Call Number: Z6027.N68 U54 1981
ISBN: 0844403350
Published/Created: 1981
A comprehensive guide to maps and atlases from the era of the American Revolution. The entire collection is available through the Library of Congress Website as digital images.
Electronic copy from HathiTrust External
The American Revolution in Drawings and Prints by Library of Congress Staff (Contribution by); Donald H. Cresswell (Foreword by)
Call Number: E209 .U54 1975
ISBN: 0844401021
Published/Created: 1975-01-01
Within this extensive work are reproductions as well as bibliographic descriptions of Indian imagery appearing in map cartouches and vignettes. Most of the collection is available through the Library of Congress Website https://www.loc.gov/photos/ as digital images.
Electronic copy available from HathiTrust External
A List of Geographical Atlases in the Library of Congress, with bibliographical notes. by Clara E. LeGear
Call Number: Z6028 .U56
ISBN: 084440117X
Published/Created: 1909-1992
A nine-volume listing, with indexes, to maps within atlases in the division.
Electronic copy from HathiTrust External
The Luso-Hispanic world in maps : a selective guide to manuscript maps to 1900 in the collections of the Library of Congress by John R. Hébert and Anthony P. Mullan
Call Number: Z6027.S72 L43 1999
Published/Created: Washington : The Library, 1999.
An important guide to roughly 1,000 manuscript maps and atlases in the Geography and Map Division from the mid-sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Although it covers the countries and regions of the world ruled by Spain and Portugal at the zenith of their powers, it describes a large body of materials on North America, with many of those items having cultural features relating to Native Americans.
This guide is available online: https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/luso/

Additional Reference Sources

The following publications are additional reference sources and bibliographies that identify Indian-related cartographic works. All can be examined in the Geography and Map Reading Room. Each title below links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.

Mapping the transmississippi West, 1540-1861. by Wheat, Carl I.
Call Number: GA405 .W5
Published/Created: San Francisco, Institute of Historical Cartography, 1957-1963.
Monumental, but flawed, five-volume history and bibliographic study of mapping of the American West.
Mapping the transmississippi West, 1540-1861 : an index to the cartobibliography. by Seavey, Charles A.
Call Number: GA408.5.W47 W4837 1992
Published/Created: Winnetka, Ill. : Speculum Orbis Press, 1992.
Index to the set by Wheat.
Cartographic records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs by Kelsay, Laura E.
Call Number: Z1209.2.U5 U53 1977
Published/Created: Washington : National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1977.
This is a revised edition of a bibliography by Kelsay published in 1954 under the title of List of Cartographic Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It describes National Archives records group 75, a rich source of cartographic information on Native American reservations, as well as irrigation projects on reservations.
Indianische Karten Nordamerikas : Beiträge zur historischen Kartographie vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert by Vollmar, Rainer
Call Number: E98.C17 V64 1981
ISBN: 3496001550
Published/Created: Berlin : D. Reimer, [1981]
This 1981 monograph consists of illustrated historical examples of Native American maps arranged chronologically from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century.
U.S. Serial Set Index, part XIV, Index and Cartobibliography of Maps, 1789-1969. by Donna P. Koepp.
Call Number: Z1223 .Z9C65 1975
Published/Created: Congressional Information Service, 1969
Multi-volume work containing a comprehensive index to, and complete bibliographic descriptions of, more than fifty thousand maps bound in the reports and documents comprising the Congressional serial Set. Included are descriptions of maps depicting Indian ceded lands, migrations, reservations, village locations, battle sites, and burial grounds. Most of the materials are included in the commercial electronic resource, "U.S. Congressional Serial Set," by NewsBank/Readex, which can be consulted at the Library, as well as other research-centered libraries.

Native American Spaces: Cartographic Resources at the Library of Congress

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Atlases and Carto-bibliographies

Atlases

Carto-bibliographies

Additional Reference Sources