The Southeast Asia Map Collection

The Yale-NUS College in Singapore has launched a new online platform featuring over 1,400 digitised Southeast Asian maps. These historical vintage maps have been digitized from the map collections of the National Library Board Singapore, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford and Leiden University Libraries. 

All the maps in the Digital Historical Maps of Southeast Asia date from before 1900 and the collection provides an unrivaled opportunity to study and explore historic maps of the region. The Southeast Asia map collection can be searched by location, by map date, by cartographer name, by place of publication, and even by different map features and attributes.

Each of the vintage maps in the collection can be viewed as a digitized interactive map. Each map can also be viewed as an overlay on a contemporary map.  Alongside these interactive map views each map comes with a brief introduction, and details on the map's publication date, map maker, publisher and the place of publication. Full library catalogue details are also provided for each map.

The Digital Historical Maps of Southeast Asia platform includes a number of thematic guided tours of the collection. These 'MapJourneys' explore the early history of Southeast Asian maps and the changing geo-political situation in the region. Other tours look at the development of map features, such as the use of cartouches or inset maps.