Historic Urban Plans, Inc.

06/09/2025

A blending of geographic accuracy and artistic flare is common in “persuasive” maps. With rich illustrations and sweeping panoramas, real estate maps from the late 19th century certainly fall into this cartographic category.

This colorful example from the Library's Geography and Map Division illustrates the "Palisades on the Potomac" neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

See more of these types of maps, including one for the dry neighborhood of "Prohibition Park" on Staten Island. 👇

https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2025/06/scenery-unsurpassed-real-estate-promotion-through-maps/?loclr=fbloc

Image: Palisades of the Potomac, scenery unsurpassed…, Brewer, H. W., Jacob P Clark, Edward B Cottrell, and Palisades of the Potomac Land Improvement Company, 1890. Geography and Map Division.

05/30/2025

Here's another rare treasure from our upcoming auction: the woodblock map of Asia from Caius Julius Solinus' Polyhistor (1538). This map is one of the first obtainable maps to focus on the continent of Asia as well as the first printed map to depict the northwest coast of America. Check it out when Auction 204 goes live next Wednesday, June 4th!

04/22/2025

01/22/2025

Here's a sneak peek of a rarity that will be in our upcoming auction. This is the title cartouche of Joseph Bouchette's map of Upper and Lower Canada, featuring a view of Lake Ontario and a vignette of the HMS St. Lawrence, a ship that served on the lake during the War of 1812. We're listing the eastern sheet of this very rare map in our auction - you can take a look at the whole sheet when our next auction goes live on Wednesday, January 29th!
([Eastern Sheet] Map of the Provinces of Upper & Lower Canada with the Adjacent Parts of the United States of America &c..., Joseph Bouchette, 1815)

12/10/2024

Here's a rare one from our archives: an unrecorded, late variant the Hondius world map, published by Francis Jollain circa 1671-73, with scientific border decorations adapted from Boisseau's map of 1636. The map is full of fascinating geography, including the newly discovered Le Maire Strait, a St. Lawrence River that spans most of North America, Korea as an island, and a massive southern continent.