Stanford's Folio North America Map published 1884

The Stanford's Map of North America is from a fascinating series of reproductions from our Edward Stanford Cartographic Collection archive. Originally published in 1884, this map features bright colours highlighting international borders, with the corresponding colouring indicating state/provincial borders within the USA, Canada and Mexico.

A plain background with hachure for mountain ranges makes the place names marked on the map easy to read. Several mountain peaks, mainly in the USA, are shown with heights (in feet). In common with other map published by Stanfords around that time, numerous smaller rivers are named. Latitude and longitude lines are drawn at 5° intervals. Whilst at first glance there have been few significant changes in the international boundaries. Panama is still shown as part of Colombia plus Greenland and Iceland are in Danish colours, internal administrative border provides much interesting detail.

In the US all the states which acceded to the Union after the map's publication date are already there, but with the Dakotas as one state and Oklahoma shown as the Indian Territory and its panhandle as separate Public Lands. In Canada, the northern borders of most of the provinces are much further south than today, southern Saskatchewan called Assiniboia and northern Alberta as Athabasca, etc. Coverage of Canada extends north to the Parry Islands (now Queen Elizabeth Islands), with only the south-eastern coast of the Ellesmere Island. In the Caribbean individual islands are in the colours of their colonial powers (their names are not marked on the map). Another interesting feature are the markings for the submarine telegraph cables.

We can laminate this replica map, which will allow you to draw on it or apply our map dots to locations of interest without permanently marking the map. The lamination makes the map very durable and protects against tears and stains.

Published: 1884

Size: 545 x 737 mm