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Western Libraries

Map Collection: Find & access print maps

Western Libraries contains a collection of maps and other cartographic resources from all over the world, but the main focus is on the Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest and parts of western and northern Canada.

Print Collection

The Map Collection houses a wide variety of resources including topographic maps of the western United States and Canada, nautical and aeronautical charts, globes, and gazetteers. We also have many other types of maps (physical, political, geologic, climatic, road, etc.) from all over the world. More than 65,000 maps are in our catalog, and we are adding more every day.

Maps include:

  • U.S. Geological Survey-- topographic & geologic maps.
  • N.O.A.A. Nautical Charts
  • N.G.A. Nautical Charts (formerly N.I.M.A. and D.M.A.)
  • N.G.A. Aeronautical Charts (formerly N.I.M.A. and D.M.A.)
  • Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources -- geologic maps.
  • Canadian Government-- topographic maps.

Preparing to Visit the Map Collection

Nearly all of our Map Collection is cataloged, which means you can search OneSearch using keywords, format, location (in the libraries), etc. to view holdings and find where they are located. This video (originally made for a class, Salish Sea Studies 201) shares some tips on how to generate keywords and use OneSearch filters to find maps in the catalog:

Once you have call numbers for the maps that you are interested in, visit the Circulation Services desk in Haggard Library and ask for help accessing the Map Collection.

Our collection includes paper nautical charts from the Salish Sea bioregion, including those published by NOAA and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

For U.S. charts, first locate a chart number using NOAA’s chart finder, and then search OneSearch to see if we have the chart in our collection.

For Canadian charts, you can use this chart index to locate a chart number. All of our Canadian charts are listed here in OneSearch; the catalog does not include titles of individual charts, just numbers and dates.

To access a paper chart, bring its number and publication year with you to the circulation desk in Haggard Library, and ask for help accessing the Map Collection. Nautical charts are stored in the “freezer chests” in the northern part of the Map Collection.

Using Maps

Place Names

What does the eagle mean?

WWU is a part of the Federal Depository Library Program.  That means the U.S. government sends us publications for free - including maps - and Western is required to make them available to the general public.  There are over 1,000 federal depository libraries and they are all marked with the eagle logo.  (Northwest Indian College in Whatcom County is another one.)

More about Western's Government Information collection.

More about the Federal Depository Library Program.

Aerial Photography

Western's collection of approximately 32,000 aerial photographs can be found at the Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, located in the Goltz-Murray Archives building. Emphasis is on the Puget Sound Region, especially Whatcom County, but there are representative sets from different areas of the United States.

Atlases

The Libraries own more than 1,000 atlases. You can find them in the catalog under the Subject heading Atlases.  In many cases, library users can answer questions of a geographic nature by referring to an atlas first, rather than trying to retrieve a sheet map of a particular area.