Introducing Google Maps Gallery: Unlocking the World’s Maps

If you’ve ever wondered which trails Lewis & Clark traveled for their famous expedition, or looked for maps of the best schools in your region, you may have found yourself scouring the web without much luck. The best results for your search may come from governments, nonprofits and businesses, but historically that information has been hard to find or inaccessible to the public. Well, now, with the new Google Maps Gallery, it’s easier for you to find maps like those all in one place.

Maps Gallery works like an interactive, digital atlas. You can explore historic city plans, climate trends, housing affordability, shipwrecks and up-to-date evacuation routes. In addition to finding these maps through Maps Gallery, they can be viewed in Google Earth and are discoverable through major search engines.

This World Bank map shows per capita internet usage by country over time

Travel back to Venice 1838 with the David Rumsey Map Collection

(Use the slider to fade in the base map and see how things have changed)

The contrast between North Korea and South Korea could hardly be more stark on this NASA map

Today, you can browse the Gallery for maps from National Geographic Society, World Bank Group, United States Geological Survey, Florida Emergency Management and the City of Edmonton, and more organizations will be adding their maps over time. As the Gallery grows, it’ll be easier to find out where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going, giving us a new way to look at the world around us.  

Posted by Jordan Breckenridge, Product Manager, Google Maps