Tuesday, July 28, 2015

The Harvard Historical Sea Chart Collection


The Harvard Map Collection has released a new interactive map showcasing some of the fabulous historical sea charts in its collection of vintage maps. Sea Atlases allows you to explore these historical sea charts overlaid on a modern interactive map.

Ten atlas volumes were digitized by the Harvard Map Collection, and then georeferenced in order to be able to view them on top of modern day maps. Being able to explore these fantastic vintage sea charts is of course the main attraction of Sea Atlases, but this is only made possible by the beautifully intuitive and well designed interface.


The home page of Sea Atlases consists of a time-line which allows you to explore the collection by the age of the vintage sea charts. Once you open the map interface you can search for the sea charts by location. Pan and zoom the map and the locations of the available sea charts are indicated on the map by map markers. Click on a marker and you can select the 'view chart' option to view the vintage sea chart overlaid on top of the modern map.

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