Maps

Maps on FIBIwiki can be found in the Map Image Category. The FIBIS Search also a Maps section.

Other sources of maps on the wiki include:

• Calcutta Maps

Battle Maps

Sy Morse-Brown has created a number of Battle Maps detailing manoeuvres in wars, campaigns and battles. These can be browsed by campaign in the FIBIS Battle Maps category.

Also see

• Gazetteers

Place Names in India

Marcus F C Martin, a geographer devised a simple way to understand the old English spellings for Indian places. “For example, FATEHPUR (‘City of Victory’) is a fairly common placename and by the mid-19th century it could be spelled in at least seven ways: FUTTIHPOOR, FUTIHPORE, FUTTAPORE, FUTTEHPOOR, FUTTIPOUR, FUTTYPOOR, FUTTYPORE etc. Marcus saw that the consonants were fairly accurate and could be reduced to a short code: here ‘FTP’ or, if you prefer 4 characters, ‘FTPR’. Then

a.. treat soft ‘c’, ‘ch’ and ‘chh’ as being the same;

b.. treat hard ‘c’, ‘k’ and ‘q’ also as the same; and

c.. treat double consonants as single (‘ck’ as ‘k’, ‘tt’ as ‘t’ etc);

d.. Ignore vowels, except at the beginning of a name, when they should be replaced by a wildcard, such as a dash (-).

Marcus was apparently delighted to find, using this principle, that OOMRAWUTTEE was modern AMRAOTI (both names will code to ‘-MRT’). He published a pamphlet which is long since out of print, with coded tables for the 3,900 Post Offices that existed in India in 1877, when they were renamed in standardised form and continued until independence.

The principle is quite easy to remember and helps enormously when looking up placenames in atlases and gazetteers.”

External links

• Historical Maps of India, hosted by Rootsweb, created by Ian Poyntz, has an excellent list of map links and also hosts many historical maps of regions and cities in British India. Includes
  • Constable's 1893 Area Maps together with Index of place names for Constable's 1893 Area Maps

See further below for Constable's Hand Atlas of India 1893.

• Atlas of South India : in eighteen sheets, from Cape Comorin to the River Kistnah. 1822 by A Arrowsmith. University of Minnesota Libraries, Ames Library of South Asia.
• An Atlas of the Southern Part of India, including plans of all the principal towns & cantonments, reduced from the grand trigonometrical survey of India, shewing also the Tenasserim Provinces 1854. Archive.org. Contents. Also available on Hathi Trust Digital Library where the pages can be rotated, (but the images may be difficult to enlarge).
• The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas has digitised many current and historical maps.

• Asia maps
• Bangladesh maps
• Burma maps
• India maps
• Pakistan maps
• Sri Lanka maps.

• Imperial Gazetteer of India Maps from the Digital South Asia Library,University of Chicago.

• 1909 Maps
• 1931 Maps

• List of Maps of Towns and Cities 1911 The maps may then be located within the text of the book A Handbook for Travellers in India, Burma, and Ceylon published by John Murray, London Eighth Edition 1911 Archive.org. Note: the full map will generally be the second map shown.

• David Rumsey Map Collection South Asia which includes

• India,
• Pakistan

These high-resolution historical maps have very good detail when increased in size.

• Maps of Central and South Asia World Digital Library includes

• 1903 Map of India. Easy to enlarge

• Maps of Asia British Library’s Online Gallery
• Library of Congress Maps Search. Includes
  • The East Indies with the roads 1768 The word ‘roads’ probably has the nautical meaning of ‘partly sheltered anchorages’
  • Atlas of India: South published 1862. 42 images. Maps are dated from 1827 to 1862. Alternative format where the index page may be easier to view.
  • Collection of 314 maps of sections of India c 1960. Click on “View 316 images in sequence”.
• National Library of Australia has a collection of Digital maps. From the Search item “Add limits”, select ‘NLA digitized material’
  • Maps from The Colonial Church Atlas 3rd Edition 1850
    • 1850 Map of the Diocese of Calcutta. Catalogue entry
    • 1850 Map of the Diocese of Madras. Catalogue entry
    • 1850 Map of the Diocese of Bombay. Catalogue entry
  • 1894 Atlas of India: containing sixteen maps & complete index with an introduction by Sir W.W. Hunter. Edinburgh ; London : W. & A. K. Johnston, 1894. Maps commence Part 49, Index commences Part 79. Catalogue entry
  • 1900 Map: Routes to India Catalogue entry
• Constable's Hand Atlas of India 1893 Archive.org. See above for some of these maps rotated on the website "Historical Maps of India".
• Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek contains some digital maps, including Calcutta maps . Search using term map or karte.
• Qatar Digital Library has maps of Persia including
  • 1928 Map of Persia and Afghanistan.

Currently (November 2014) all the maps are from the British Library India Office Records collection.

• Harvard Map Collection: Digital Maps: Search
• Maps of South Asia from the website of Prof. Frances Pritchett, Columbia University
• Abhilekh Patal hosts the digital collection of the National Archives of India. Includes a collection of digitised Cartographic Records, including "Historical, Forest and Revenue Maps of the Survey of India". Registration is required to view the documents. Note, a researcher has had issues with this website and although certain the website is legitimate, suspects a hacker may have been involved.
• Post routes maps Gallica: Bibliothèque Nationale de France (click multiple times to enlarge)
  • Map of the Post Office Stations, Post and Bangy Routes throughout British India 1838. Description of a bangy.
  • India shewing the Post Roads and Dawk Stations by James Wyld 1860
• Railway maps

• Two orientations of the same 1871 map, A and B, the latter map includes Burma. Wikimedia.
• 1882 Railway map of India from the website “Frederick Lewis Dibblee”.
• 1893 Railway map of India Irfca.org. This appears to be from Constable's Hand Atlas of India
  • Section 2 [N/E] Constable's Hand Atlas of India Archive.org
• 1909 Railway maps from Imperial Gazetteer of India from the Digital South Asia Library,University of Chicago.
  • 1909 General Map of Railways
  • Section 1 [N/W]
  • Section 2 [N/E]
  • Section 3 [S]
• 1919 Survey of India map of India showing railways. University of Minnesota Libraries, Ames Library of South Asia

• Map of India (Railways) 1920 Probert Encyclopaedia, now an archived webpage.
• 1931 Railway maps from Imperial Gazetteer of India from the Digital South Asia Library,University of Chicago.
  • General Railway Map
  • Section 1 [N/W]
  • Section 2 [N/E]
  • Section 3 [S]

• Military maps
  • Map of Military Stations in India c 1864 from Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Inquire into the Sanitary State of the Army in India : with Abstract of Evidence, and of Reports Received from Indian Military Stations 1864 Archive.org
  • Military Map of the Indian Empire 1893 Constable's Hand Atlas of India Archive.org
  • Map: Railways and Cantonments 1928 produced by General Staff India. retronaut.com, now an archived webpage.
• "Telephone Map of India 1934" British Library Untold lives blog 21 March 2019. Contains extracts from the map held at the British Library.
• Probert Encyclopaedia :The Internet Map Archive, now an archived website. These are low resolution maps but may be useful for an overview
  • Map of Indian Empire (Northern Section) 1936, Map of Indian Empire (Southern Section) 1936, Map of Indian Empire (Eastern Section) 1936 Includes Burma. (archived webpages)

• Burma maps
  • 1952 Map of the Irrawaddy River facing page 43 with "Alphabetical List of Stations", page 45 Inland Water Transport Board (Irrawaddy Section), published July 1952 or later. Archive.org

• Ceylon maps

See Ceylon

• Singapore and Southeast Asia. Rare Maps Collection: A digital collection of Singapore and Southeast Asia's print heritage from BookSG, National Library Singapore.

About maps and place names

• (1945) Special Series No. 31 - Guide to Maps of the Far East published by Military Intelligence Division, War Department, Washington DC. June 1, 1945 report providing instruction on how to use maps not issued by U.S. military forces.
• "Understanding Maps for Genealogists" "Finding Obscure and Elusive Geographic Information on the Web" by James Tanner. Webinar by BYU Family History Library published May 2, 2016 YouTube.
• Robert S. Cragg’s World Postmarks (archive.org link)
  • India and States Pre-Independence India and Princely States.(archive.org link). Sourced from English Names for Indian Places; a Coded Index of Indian Post Offices by Marcus F C Martin, published 1966. Available at the British Library
  • Pakistan, Burma