In its simplest form, a gazetteer is a list, dictionary, or directory of place names and their geographical location, usually their latitude and longitude. More detailed gazetteers may also include information about name changes, boundary changes, histories, demographic information, manufacturing data, the economy, tourism, forms of government, and so on.
A detailed gazetteer may even describe places not identified on most maps, which encourages us to dig a bit deeper and look for a map that records our ancestor’s location. This information helps a researcher find a place on a map when its location is unknown, cannot easily be seen, or is not described. Perhaps that place no longer exists or the scale is too small for it to be shown, especially in the case of a small village or hamlet. Perhaps the place name has changed over the years; even if the name has changed, its geospatial coordinates should be the same.
The Library has in its collections all sorts of gazetteers for New York, the United States, and many countries: Ireland, England, others in Eastern Europe and Africa…you name it. Some of those gazetteers date back hundreds of years and are of particular value to people researching places at different points in history.
For more information on gazetteers, please consult the research guide Gazetteers and Other Place-Name Resources.
Search for print maps and atlases in the NYPL Research Catalog and Dictionary catalog of the Map Division (aka G.K. Hall), digitized by the Hathitrust. Better still, come to the Map Division in person and talk to a map librarian about what kind of map might help with your research. You can plan your visit in advance by emailing the Map Division at maps@nypl.org. Tip: Think about what you want to see in that map: continents, countries, states, counties, towns and cities, or streets and houses? This information will help you with your map hunt.
To request maps and atlases from the Map Division, you will need an NYPL Special Collections account: please email maps@nypl.org for further information.
For more detailed information on finding and accessing maps at The New York Public Library, consult the research guide Navigating Research at the Map Division: Getting Started at the New York Public Library.
The Library has digitized approximately 25,000 maps, including thousands of plates from fire insurance maps, county maps and atlases, and historic maps of New York City and the United States, all available to view, and often download for free, via NYPL Digital Collections. This guide includes links to NYC Fire Insurance, Topographic and Property Maps.
Search in digitized Sanborn Maps, New York State (Geocoded) fire insurance maps in the Library, or at home with your NYPL Library card. (Apply for your Library card here.)
Old Maps Online is an Anglo-Swiss project that maps hundreds of thousands of digitized historical online maps all over the world. Users can search for maps from NYPL, the United States Geological Survey, the David Rumsey Map Collection, the British Library Map Library, the Harvard Map Collection, and the Boston Public Library.