Historic Maps - CP C240/LA C250 - Theories of Urban Form and Design

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

Available online:

Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970
Access to large-scale maps of more than 12,000 American towns and cities.

Access to more than 660,000 large-scale maps of more than 12,000 American towns and cities. Sanborn maps are historical tools for urban specialists, social historians, architects, geographers, genealogists, local historians, planners, environmentalists. Founded in 1867 by D. A. Sanborn, the Sanborn Map Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years.

Digitized full color 1905 San Francisco Sanborn insurance atlas
The David Rumsey Map Collection scanned and placed online the 1905 Sanborn insurance atlas for San Francisco. Maptcha.org created a very helpful clickable map index to the atlas pages.

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Read more about the project on the David Rumsey blog: http://www.davidrumsey.com/blog/2011/6/27/pre-earthquake-san-francisco-1905-sanborn-insurance-atlas

Physically located at the Earth Sciences & Map Library:

The Sanborn building & property atlas of San Francisco, California by Real Estate Data, Inc.
Call Number: f G1529.S5G475 .R4 1988
Publication Date: 1988

Available at the Earth Sciences & Map Library circulation desk. Includes the 11 volumes of 1988 Sanborn building maps together with County Assessor's Office block maps, issued in 4 loose-leaf binders. Includes street address and block number indexes.
Sanborn fire insurance maps, California, 1884-1950 [microform] by Sanborn Map Company
Call Number: MICROFILM 31073

Microfilmed copies of California Sanborn fire insurance maps through 1950, available at the Earth Sciences & Map Library. We also have the 1952 Oakland maps on microfilm -- see MICROFILM 31073 Reel 75. You can save pdfs of the images.

Maps @ the Library

Pro tip! Many of UCB Library's holdings are tagged with subject headings. A common one for finding large-scale maps of cities is "Real property."

To find these in Oskicat, search for subjects beginning with, "Real property -- California." You can browse the list, or add your specific city or county of interest to the search, e.g. "Real property -- California -- Oakland."

Real Estate Atlases:

The Earth Sciences & Map Library has many large scale atlases of Bay Area cities and towns. Often these are called "real estate atlases." Some of them show corresponding aerial photgraphs of the different lots.

To find these in the library, search Oskicat using the phrase, "real estate atlas" california.

Another pro tip! The maps in the Earth Sciences & Maps Library are organized roughly geographically, so one of the best ways to find maps is to browse through a folder of maps.

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CP C240/LA C250 - Theories of Urban Form and Design: Historic Maps

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

Maps @ the Library