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

• The Roots India mailing list site, 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
• 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

• 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

• 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
• 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.

• Maps of South Asia from the website of Prof. Frances Pritchett, Columbia University

• 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
  • India shewing the Post Roads and Dawk Stations by James Wyld 1860

• Railway maps (archive.org links are used)

• Railway map of India 1882 from the website “Frederick Lewis Dibblee”.
• Railway map of India 1893 Irfca.org
• Railway map of India 1909 from the website “Frederick Lewis Dibblee”. This is a clear large scale map.
• Map of India (Railways) 1920 Probert Encyclopaedia

• Military maps
  • Map: Railways and Cantonments 1928 produced by General Staff India. retronaut.com . May also be acessed through the same map, but smaller scale, on pinterest.com, by clicking through to first link, and then double clicking for enlarged version.

• Probert Encyclopaedia :The Internet Map Archive 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. (archive.org links used forr maps)

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.
• Finding the Obscure and the Elusive: Geographic Information On the Web A presentation by James L. Tanner at Rootstech 2013
• 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