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Objective: I want to overlay old, historical maps on top of Google Maps. According to Wikipedia, Google Maps uses a variant of the Mercator projection, a close relative of cylindrical projections.

Research: I have found various historical maps sources, particularly the website by David Rumsey. However, all these maps (as well as others I've found online) are conical projections.

Questions: Here are three scenarios to achieve my objective.

  • Are there historical maps available as cylindrical projections?
  • If not, then are there tools that can 'rubber-sheet' existing conical projections into cylindrical projections?
  • If neither is the case, then what is the best way to 'pin up' a conical projection onto a cylindrical one?
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Even if you find historical maps that use a cylindrical projection, or even Mercator projection, they're not going to overlay without further work. Even in the Mercator case, the datums or projection parameters will be different.

You can try to georeference the historical map to reference data that's in a coordinate system as close as possible to the one in the historical map. Georeferencing usually uses something like an affine or polynomial transformation. Many GIS also support rubber sheeting (but it's often for vector data). Once you have a georeferenced version of the map, you could then project it to Google's Mercator-based coordinate system or possible to lat/lon (geographic coordinates).

Have you seen the historical maps pages from Google Earth and David Rumsey?

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  • Yes, I've been sifting through the David Rumsey collection lately, but all I've seen is conical projections. I've also briefly looked at the Google Earth historical maps too, which are more useful, but I don't know how to leverage them in Google Maps. Your suggestion of using a GIS to rubber sheet seems hopeful, could you please suggest some GIS software that I can use? By the way, are there any sources for vector-based historical maps?
    – Hamman Samuel
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 18:12
  • By the way, here's the link to Rumsey's historical maps rubber sheeted onto Google Maps, looks promising! rumsey.geogarage.com
    – Hamman Samuel
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 18:15
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You can find a lot of historic maps online digitized by American Libraries. A few examples:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/

http://lib.byu.edu/digital/germanmaps/

http://www.wildernis.eu/chart-room/

Unfortunately, Only few write the used projection onto the map.

Cylindrical Projections are common for Northern America. In Europe, Mercator and Transverse Mercator is and was used.

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  • Very good point, I didn't realize that! My project is using Canadian maps, and this explains why it's been so hard to get a Mercator projection version of it.
    – Hamman Samuel
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 18:09
  • Canada is close to the Arctic, and that region looks very exaggerated in Mercator pojection. Transverse Mercator is more suitable for countries that have a North-South extension. LCC is far better in that respect for the USA and Canada.
    – AndreJ
    Commented Mar 7, 2014 at 18:17

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