Tuesday, January 13, 2015

The Interactive 16th Century Map of London


The Agas Map is a beautiful bird's eye view map of London, first printed in 1561. The map depicts a London which is still a walled city and where the banks of the Thames are dotted with bear pits and playhouses.

The Agas Map of Early Modern London is an interactive version of the map built using the OpenLayers platform. You can pan and zoom in on the map and you can explore locations on the map using the location categories menu. For example if you turn on the streets layer you can click on roads on the map to learn more about the road and its etymology.

The Map of Early London website includes a comprehensive encyclopedia of London people, places and topics featured in or important to the map. The interactive locations on the map connects with the encyclopedia. If you select a location from the map or from the locations menu you can read a snippet from the encyclopedia and click through to read the full encyclopedia entry.

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