The History of Edinburgh Map

Edinburgh Library has created a wonderful map featuring historical stories, photos and maps about life in the Scottish capital.

Our Town Stories - Edinburgh is a great showcase for some of Edinburgh Library's collection of historical documents, photographs and maps. My favorite aspect of Our Town is that you can view historical photos of the city actually overlaid on your choice of historical maps of the city.

The map includes a handy time-line feature which allows you to search through the stories, photos and maps by date. Enter a date range on the time-line and all the documents for that period are shown on the map using categorized markers.


If you select a 'history map' marker you can view the map overlaid on top of the Google Map base layer. You can then select an 'image' marker to view the historical image and the location that it depicts.

If you select a 'story' marker a story map opens. The story map guides you through an historical event from Edinburgh's past highlighting all the relevant locations on a Google Map. For example, the 'Robert Louis Stevenson’s Edinburgh' story recounts the author's life in Edinburgh, featuring family portraits and historical photos, and a mapped guide to some of the Edinburgh locations important in his life.