See Towns Grow With These Historic Maps

The USGS Historical Topographic Map Explorer is a great way to explore the growth of US cities using USGS historical maps.

Click on the modern Esri map of a location and all the available USGS historical topographic maps of the area are shown in a timeline beneath the map. If you select a map from the timeline it will then be overlaid on the modern map. You can therefore work through the timeline of historical maps to observe how towns and cities have developed over time.

The map includes an opacity slide tool so that you can adjust the transparency of the overlaid historical maps. The timeline beneath the map can also be adjusted to increase the size of the map.