In 1948, Melville J. Herskovits established the African Studies program at Northwestern University. It was the first of its kind at a major research university in the United States, and since its creation, it has also been actively involved with collecting historic maps of Africa. This particular online collection draws on this legacy of preservation and acquisition, and all told, it contains 113 antique maps of Africa dating from the middle of the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century. Visitors can utilize a search engine to look through the maps, or they may also browse by title, cartographer, or date. There are a number of real finds here, including Frederik de Wit's 1708 map of North Africa (titled "Barbaria") and an early map of Zanzibar from 1740.