GIS literacy is important to demonstrate spatial relationships and distances. There are many software tools that map data and they are explained on the GIS Subject Guide. Additional information about maps, atlases and spatial imagery is found on that Subject Guide which highlights government data sources.
What is a Sanborn Map?
"The Sanborn map collection consists of a uniform series of large-scale maps, dating from 1867 to the present and depicting the commercial, industrial, and residential sections of some twelve thousand cities and towns in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
The maps were designed to assist fire insurance agents in determining the degree of hazard associated with a particular property and therefore show the size, shape, and construction of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories as well as fire walls, locations of windows and doors, sprinkler systems, and types of roofs.
The maps also indicate widths and names of streets, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. They show the locations of water mains, giving their dimensions, and of fire alarm boxes and hydrants."
Fire insurance maps in the Library of Congress: plans of North American cities and towns produced by the Sanborn Map Company: a checklist
ProQuest Digital Sanborn
The UCI Library does not currently have a subscription to the Digital Sanborn product from ProQuest. Anyone with a current and valid Los Angeles Public Library card may access the Proquest product form their home computer.
Guides and Checklists for Sanborn Content
Sanborn Holdings at other Area Libraries
California State University Northridge Map Library: The largest print collection of local Sanborn maps, holdings are catalogued in Rees, Gary W. A catalogue of Sanborn atlases at California State University, Northridge. [Santa Cruz, Calif.]:Western Association of Map Libraries, [1973]; located in the YRL Reference Collection, Call Number Z6028 .R259c
Los Angeles City Planning Department: Limited volumes, holdings are listed in Sanborn index at YRL Reference Desk. Contact number is 213-978-1259
Los Angeles Central Public Library: microfilm copies of the Library of Congress holdings for the state of California (see catalog listed below), plus digital Sanborn maps from 1867-1970 for the state of California (LAPL library card required).
Center for Research Libraries: CRL holds the complete microfilm set for all 50 states and the District of Columbia which includes approximately 10,000 cities and towns. UCLA faculty, students, and staff may obtain microfilm copies of these maps by requesting them through the Library’s Interlibrary Loan service. Search the CRL Catalog for holdings information to make an ILL request.
Southern California/LA Area Mapping
Downloadable Los Angeles City boundary maps (sanitation districts, fire districts, etc.)
Requires Installation
Access to General Plan, Community Plans, Land Use and Zoning information for the city.
Includes interactive demographic maps for LA, historical neighborhood maps.
Interactive mapping tool for LA, includes layers for transportation, capital improvement projects, city facilities, planning and zoning areas, etc.
Includes online transportation maps.
Interactive mapping tool that shows land use planning and zoning for the unincorporated ares of Los Angeles County. To find maps for cities within the county, go to the city's planing office.
Currently you may research assessment information for individual parcels, print Assessor maps, and search for sales within the past two years.
Land use for all Fifty States showing Transportation, Water, Cultural, Industrial, Mining, Waste, Military, Nuclear/Radioactive, R&D.
From Professor William Bowen.
Excellent cartographic history of the Los Angeles. Book contains reproductions of many important and early maps of LA.
Collection contains maps of the Southern California Ranchos, including Los Angeles. Holdings are at the Huntington Library.
Finding aid and some online maps for a collection of hundreds of pamphlet maps of various places around the world. Collection held by the UCLA Library Department of Special Collections.
A listing of special collections finding aids that contain maps of the Los Angeles Area.
Key Historical Insurance Maps
Significant contributions to the fire insurance map industry are exemplified in the following maps. They are listed in chronological order of creation and publication.
Fire Insurance Map of Charleston, SC, surveyed in 1788 by Edmund Petrie. Believed to be the oldest fire insurance map in existence.
Published between 1852 and 1855 by William Perris, a seven volume set of insurance maps.
Large-scale drawings of industrial and commercial properties started in 1865 by Ernest Hexamer. Free Library of Philadelphia has digitized the maps from 1866-1896.
First fire insurance atlas of a D.A. Sanborn, 1867.
Geographic Information Systems Resources
"Dive beneath the surface and visit the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench ..."
Provides directions, interactive maps, and satellite aerial imagery of the United States. On May 25, 2007, Google released Street View, which provides 360° panoramic street-level views of various U.S. cities.
You can easily navigate the enormous amount of information in TerraServer by selecting a location on a map or entering a place name. And now, a new Web service--called TerraServer.NET--enables Web developers to easily integrate TerraServer data into their own applications.
"Your Geoscience resource for maps and related data about: geology, hazards, earth resources, geophysics, geochemistry, geochronology, paleontology, and marine geology..."
Specializes in global and regional network development, science data management, decision support and training, education and technical consultation services. CIESIN is the World Data Center A (WDC-A) for Human Interactions in the Environment. Site provides FTP access to international GIS datasets. CIESIN Gateway provides search and retrieval of SEDAC's (Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center) Data and Information Catalog Services. Multiple Catalog Search Service is also available.
US biology, geology, demography, environment, water and more.
“This dataset contains 125,192,184 computer generated building footprints in all 50 US states. This data is freely available for download and use
A web-based mapping and data visualization application that lets users create interactive maps, charts, and reports. It includes demographic, housing, employment, consumer spending (CEX) and more than 20 million detailed business profiles from Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). Users have access to SimmonsLOCAL consumer behavior data with information on over 8,000 brands and 450 unique categories. Claritas PRIZM is also available with the most comprehensive and precise insights using demographics and consumer lifestyle data.
Links to resources for spatial analysis research, data visualization, online map viewing and making.
List of resources from TeachSpatial.org
Search for spatial data by region, feature type, or series names. Data available for the world, countries, cities, counties, special districts.
Includes layers that can be downloaded for free.
The Atlas describes and maps every change in the boundaries of all United States counties from the early 1600s to 2000. You can use interactive maps or download the shapefiles.
Freely available from the University of Arkansas.
Consists of a series of viewable and downloadable ESRI shapefiles and grids describing many of the physical, administrative, transportation, demographic, economic, land use and land cover, and environmental characteristics of the 48contiguousUnited States
Discover, download, and contribute geospatial data.
Files for all levels of census geography. Includes some boundary files for 1990 as well.
Free data download from ESRI.
Provides free access to federal executive agencies' geospatial data sets.
Freely available spatial data covering countries, continents, natural resource layers, climate, and elevation.
Geospatial data search engines from the Federal Geographic Data Committee
Search geocomm.com's data library for free geospatial data.
Freely available, no restriction GIS data from Canada's Earth Sciences Sector (ESS), part of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan).
Map and geospatial data from the Southern California Association of Governments. The SCAG Region covers Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Imperial counties.
A list of GIS resources from various Librarians "trying to help you navigate GIS"
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