Google Earth Library

This is a collection of historic maps and birds eye images of Washington DC during the late 1800s and early 1900s.  The collection includes 58 highly-detailed topographic maps that appear to have been completed in the 1870s and 1880s of the outlying areas of Washington DC.  These were a bit tricky to georeference, but they turned out to be amazingly accurate given the time period in which they were originally surveyed.  The topographic maps show the locations of buildings, military installations, horse race tracks, etc, as well as general land use.

The birds eye images have been placed in the approximate location of the original artist’s perspective.  These are very high resolution images so go ahead and zoom in to see all the detail.

All of the maps and images are about 3-5 megabytes and may take a minute or two to load.  The following maps/images are included.

• 58 topographic maps from the 1870s/1880s (from NOAA Historic Maps)
• 1792 plan of Washington DC (from NOAA Historic Maps)
• 1851 map of Washington DC (from David Rumsey Historic Maps)
• 1861 map of Washington DC (from David Rumsey Historic Maps)
• 1871, 1883, 1888, 1916, and 1923 Birds Eye images from various locations around Washington DC (from Library of Congress)

Credits Google Earth Library David Rumsey Map Collection NOAA Historic Maps Library of Congress American Memory Collection

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• USGS Topographic Map Overlay
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The National Elevation Dataset (NED) contains detailed elevation data for the United States and Territories. The NED comes in three different versions.

1 and 2 Arc-Second – This version has a resolution of approximately 30 meters (60 meters for Alaska) and covers all of the United States and Territories.

1/3 Arc-Second – This version has a resolution of approximately 10 meters and covers a large portion of the Continental US only. This is more detailed than the 1 and 2 Arc-Second version.

1/9 Arc-Second – This version has a resolution of approximately 3 meters and covers only a small area of the Continental US. This is the most detailed data and is obtained from laser radar (LIDAR). This elevation data is accurate enough to make out structures and road footprints.

More information regarding the three versions can be found here.

To access the NED data, simply open the file beneath the screenshots. Then select the version you want to view. You will need to manually navigate to the area of interest or you might get a red X on the screen. Also, some of the layers will not be visible if you are not zoomed in close enough to the Earth’s surface.

Credits Google Earth Library USGS

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• SRTM KML Project
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Natural Resources Canada has created a digital topographic map for the entire country that can be viewed in Google Earth. The map is based on the WMS map service, which can be a little tricky to set up in Google Earth so I went ahead and set them all up. Just click on the link beneath the screenshot to access the maps.

The main map layer (Toporama) contains all 16 of the data layers. Most people will only need to use this layer. The farther you zoom in, the more detailed the map will become. The highest detail is based on the 1:30,000 CanVec database.

I have also included each layer individually in case you just want to pick and choose which data to view. Note that each layer has different view extents, so data may not be visible if you are not at the correct zoom level.

Credits Google Earth Library Natural Resources Canada

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• Washington DC Historic Maps
• USGS Topographic Map Overlay
• SRTM KML Project
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The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology has numerous global overlays available that can be viewed with Google Earth. These overlays are on WMS servers, which can be a little tricky to set up in Google Earth, so I have done the hard part and all you have to do is download the file below the screenshot to access all of them. This following layers are included:

1990 Land Characteristics – The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium (MRLC) layer covers the continental United States and shows general land characteristics from 1990. This overlay is available in eight different formats (real color, pseudo-color, red band, etc.)

Landsat7 Global Mosaic - The Landsat7 layer covers the entire Earth and shows a mosaic of imagery obtained from the Landsat7 satellite. I believe this imagery was probably obtained in the early 2000’s. This overlay is available in 15 different formats (real color, pseudo-color, Pan Sharpened, red band, thermal band, etc.)

Blue Marble Next Generation Global Mosaic - The Blue Marble layer covers the entire Earth and shows a mosaic of imagery obtained from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua and Terra satellites. I believe this imagery was probably obtained in the mid 2000’s. There are separate mosaics for each month of the year and also various other options, such as the ability to view the mosaics with or without bathymetry shading.

SRTM Reflectance - The SRTM Reflectance layer covers the entire Earth and shows data collected by the Space Shuttle in 2000. This data was used to generate a highly accurate elevation grid of the Earth. There are separate mosaics for each of the four subswaths and and an average. In addition, a 90 meter SRTM Derived Elevation Model is included.

National Elevation Dataset (NED)- The National Elevation Dataset layer covers the continental United States and shows a grey scale elevation map. 30 meter and 90 meter versions of the overlays are provided.

MODIS Dailey Planet - The Dailey Planet layer covers the entire Earth and shows a continuously updated mosaic of imagery obtained from the MODIS sensor on the Aqua and Terra satellites. I believe the age of this imagery is typically less than 24 hours old with the Terra imagery from the morning and Aqua imagery from the afternoon.

Much more information about each of these layers is available at the OnEarth website

Credits Google Earth Library See above descriptions

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The Norwegian Mapping Authority has created a series of maps covering Norway that can be viewed with Google Earth. The following map layers are included.

• Topographic Map (four different versions)
• Sea Territories Map
• Bathymetric Map
• Sea Charts
• Municipal Maps
• UTM Grid
• Administrative Divisions
• Vector maps for Europe

These maps are from a WMS server. Just click on the link below the screenshots to access in Google Earth.

Note that some of the maps only work at the city or street level. If you try to view them at a regional level, you will likely just see a screen of black. If that happens, just zoom in until the map becomes visible.

Credits Google Earth Library Norwegian Mapping Authority

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This overlay contains seamless topographic/land cover data for the entire Earth and a USGS Topographic Map overlay for the entire US, including Alaska and Hawaii.

• The 1:250,000 scale USGS Topo Maps are from i-cubed eTOPO.
• The remaining USGS Topographic Maps for the US are  are from the National Geographic TOPO! program.
• The global land cover imagery is from the NPS Natural Earth physical map.

Different map scales automatically load as you zoom in with the most detailed maps being available for the US.  Hill shading has been added to the maps giving them a 3D appearance.

Credits ESRI ArcGIS Online Services

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The SRTM KML Project will overlay a shaded relief map of the Earth based on elevation data from the Space Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM).  Data covers the entire Earth.

KML Content Created By:	The SRTM KML Project
Access From:

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This collection contains approximately 900 15-minute historic USGS Topographic Maps covering almost the entire states of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.  Most of the maps are dated between 1890 and 1910.

There is a long history to these maps and how they ended up on my server and the role I played is but a very small one. My understanding of the story is that Christopher Marshall took a laptop and a scanner to various libraries and created the original scans, which consisted of 4 scans for the four corners of each map. JPGs from the original scans can be downloaded from http://historical.maptech.com/ and http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/nhtopos.htm. The next chapter to the story occurred a few years ago when Richard Utter took about 900 of the maps, stitched together the four pieces of each map and georeferenced them. Then finally, last week I received an email from Russell Nelson saying that he had all of Richard’s georeferenced maps on a couple DVDs and that he would be happy to send them to me. Now here we are a few days later and I have converted all of them to Google Earth SuperOverlays and uploaded them to my server. So I would like to personally thank Christopher, Richard and Russell for their contributions in making this possible.

This collection does not have all the topo maps that are available from the University of New Hampshire and Maptech websites. Richard appears to have scanned one revision of each 15′ map. Maybe someday I will find the time to add multiple revisions and the maps that are available in other scales. But that’s an enormous undertaking so probably won’t happen any time soon. Because there is only a single version of each map, I went ahead and removed the collars to create a seamless overlay for each state.

This collection has been added to my main Historical Topographic Map collection that has 1,000+ other historical topos. If you already have that Network Link in your Google Earth Places folder, then you should see the New England Maps appear automatically. If you don’t have it, simply download the KML file at the bottom of this post.  Choose a state, and then zoom down close enough for the maps to appear (the point where about 9 maps at a time will be within view). It may take a few seconds for the map tiles to load, especially when you first select PA or NY or have a slow Internet connection. An index is provided which shows the name and date of the map. If a map appears to be missing, see if it’s associated with the adjacent state. There are a few missing, especially in northern Maine.

Original Data From:	http://historical.maptech.com/ and http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/nhtopos.htm
KML Content Created By:	GE Library
Access From:
More Info:

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