Maps
Our collection brings together important historical and modern cartographic material. Through the GEO-LEO e-docs repository, you can explore a wide range of digitized geological maps from our holdings online.
Since its foundation, SUB Göttingen has been assembling and cataloguing maps and atlases from all over the world, covering a wide range topics. Today, it boasts one of the largest and most significant map collections in Germany: around 340,000 map sheets, 11,000 atlases, 20,000 explanatory texts, topographic maps from about 120 countries in various scales, and approximately 65,000 historical maps.
A major cornerstone of the collection was the Bülow donation, which contributed over 2,000 maps from the 17th and 18th centuries, including renowned atlases by Willem and Joan Blaeu and Jan Jansson. The Library also acquired about 3,200 maps from the publishing house Johann Baptist Homann and his heirs, originating from the collection of Johann Michael Franz, Göttingen’s first professor of geography.
Donations from the Russian Baron Georg Thomas von Asch added unique maps of Siberia, Russia, and Asia. Particularly noteworthy are the hand-drawn maps of Siberia and those created during expeditions to Alaska, representing invaluable cultural and historical sources.
Due to the personal union between Hanover and Great Britain, the Göttingen Library acquired around 350 highly restricted nautical charts from the Hydrographic Office, along with 2,700 sheets from the Maps of Great Britain and Ireland – the most comprehensive and accurate land survey of the 19th century. In 1888, a large part of the collection was given on permanent loan to the University’s Institute of Geography for a century, returning to SUB Göttingen in 1988.
After 1946, the Library began systematically rebuilding its holdings by acquiring modern topographic and thematic maps as well as atlases. Within the framework of the Special Subject Collections Programme funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), Göttingen took responsibility for the area “Thematic Maps”. This focus included materials on geosciences, natural regions, population and settlement geography, economy, infrastructure, history, and languages. As a result, SUB Göttingen collected unique and comprehensive holdings that are often no longer available in other libraries – and in some cases, not even in their countries of origin.
The Special Subject Collections programme was discontinued in 2015 and replaced by the successor project Discipline-Specific Information Services. SUB Göttingen participates in FID GEO and operates GEO-LEOe-docs, an open-access repository for geoscience providing digital access to geological maps from our collection.
Search our Collections
Printed maps are listed in the Göttinger Universitätskatalog (GUK) or GöDiscovery. The Search section provides access to additional key databases and catalogues, for instance when searching for historical or hand-drawn maps. More detailed information on selected holdings can be found in the Sammlungskatalog.
Use our Collections
Printed maps can be requested on-site using an order form, by email (karten@sub.uni-goettingen.de), or by phone, and consulted in the reading room of the Historical Building . For more information, please see: Visiting the Reading Room.
