How to Browse Historical Maps in Google Earth


Google Earth lets you  view and navigate hundreds of historical maps from different countries and cities all over the world.

Thanks to David Rumsey, you can travel around the world in past right on your Google Earth.

David Rumsey is a map collector and founder of  a Map Collection which  was started over 25 years ago and contains more than 150,000 maps and cartographic,best known as David Rumsey Map Collection. Rumsey has assembled a collection of 200 maps (1680 to 1930 ) into single KMZ file.

Installation Instructions -

1 – Download the KMZ file.Get it from here..

2-  Drag and Drop the KMZ file onto Google Earth’s interface.

3- After you dropped the KMZ file,You will see maps on left –side pane under places .Just tick the check box and the historical map will be showed on the top of current map as shown in the image below.

google earth historical maps


Author:  Ishank Badhani   Article Posted on:  Dec 9, 2009   Posted in: