In the eighteenth century, wise sage and journalist Samuel Johnson opined that when one was tired of London, they were in fact tired of life. Well, the same might be said for this exuberant and delightful website, and it is doubtful that visitors will be tired of its fine collection of London maps even after several visits. Organized as part of the British Library's Online Gallery collection, the...

Samuel Johnson infamously said that "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." The same might be said about the wonderful maps of London that can be examined in copious detail within this corner of the British Library's website. Visitors can start by reading curator Peter Barber's introduction to this collection of over 1,200 maps and plans of London. To get a flavor of the offerings...

Sometime in the middle of the thirteen century, the monk Matthew Paris created a diagram using ink and various pigments to illustrate his route from London to Apulia. In doing so, he created a document which forms part of the cartographic history of a city that would grow exponentially over the coming centuries. This document, along with thirty nine others, form part of the online exhibit, London:...

Readers interested in maps of British cultural history and literature may enjoy Romantic London, "a research project exploring life and culture in London around the turn of the nineteenth century." This project uses Richard Horwood's late eighteenth-century Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster juxtaposed with modern maps of the city "as a means of thinking about how writers, publishers and...