Frequently Asked Questions

Pastmaps is a husband-and-wife company based in Seattle. Craig handles the software, and Savannah manages our print service. We run it as a labor of love.

Historical maps are always in demand, but finding and working with them was a pain. Craig, an avid metal detectorist, got tired of hunting across scattered government archives and fighting with clunky GIS tools just to overlay a historical map on a modern one. He wanted to build something better — a single place to find, explore, and compare historical maps. And so Pastmaps was born.

Pastmaps offers two things: a digital map exploration platform with tools like opacity comparison, 3D terrain, and satellite/LiDAR layers, and a professional print service where you can order museum-quality prints of any map in our collection.

Click “Log in” in the top right corner of any page. You can sign up with your email address or your Google account. Creating an account is free.

Feel free to email us anytime at hello@pastmaps.com. We're happy to help.

Yearly memberships start with a 7-day free trial. You get full access right away, and you won't be charged until the trial ends. We'll email you 3 days before it ends as a reminder, and you can cancel any time during the trial from Manage subscription without paying anything.

You can see current plans and pricing on our pricing page. A membership unlocks full high-resolution zoom on every map in the collection, unlimited hi-res downloads, and our satellite, 3D terrain, and LiDAR layers. Free accounts can view a limited selection of maps each week.

Head to Manage subscription, log in, and cancel. You won't see any further charges from us after that, and you'll keep your access through the end of the period you've already paid for.

Your account returns to the free tier — you keep the account itself and everything you had before you subscribed. You can resubscribe any time.

Yes! A gift membership is a one-time purchase that gives the recipient 12 months of full access — no auto-renewal. Head to our gift page to set one up. You can even schedule delivery for a specific day.

Absolutely — that's exactly what our refund policy is for. Head there to request a refund within 30 days of the renewal and we'll return the full amount. We won't ask you why.

Our collection includes over 500,000 detailed historical maps spanning more than 200 years, including the United States Geological Survey's Historical Topographic Map Collection and historical Ordnance Survey maps of Great Britain. We also offer modern satellite imagery and LiDAR hillshade layers for comparing historical maps with current terrain.

You can search by city, county, or state using the search bar at the top of any page. You can also browse nearby maps using the Explore page, which shows maps based on your current location.

We'd love to hear from you! If you have a map that isn't in our collection, reach out to us at hello@pastmaps.com. We can assist with digitizing individual maps or entire collections.

The oldest map in our collection is an Ordnance Survey six-inch map of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, from 1829! Our US collection begins in 1879.

Pastmaps gives you an interactive map viewer that aligns historical maps with their real-world location on a modern basemap. You can adjust the opacity to compare old and new, switch between different editions of the same area to see how it changed over time, and explore in 3D with terrain elevation. Plus subscribers also get access to high-resolution satellite imagery and LiDAR hillshade layers for revealing hidden ground features like old foundations and roads.

Open any map, click the Download button in the toolbar, and pick from three options. Quick copy is a 2,000 px JPEG for documents, slides, and email. The KMZ is a lightweight overlay for Google Earth, Gaia GPS, and CalTopo. Full resolution gives you the complete original — a GeoPDF for US maps, which prints at full size and works offline in Avenza Maps, or a georeferenced GeoTIFF for our UK Ordnance Survey maps. US maps also offer a GeoTIFF under Advanced for GIS software like QGIS and ArcGIS, though it's lower resolution than the PDF.

Usually, yes. Our USGS maps are US government publications in the public domain, so you're free to use them in reports, websites, and other projects — including commercial ones. Our UK Ordnance Survey maps are out of copyright, and the scans are provided by the National Library of Scotland under a CC-BY 4.0 license, so you just need to credit the National Library of Scotland when reusing them.

We're always working on making Pastmaps better. We have a long list of features we're excited about, including annotation tools, project files for saving your work, and more map collections from around the world. Create a free account to stay in the loop on new releases.

Email us at hello@pastmaps.com! We read every message and feature requests directly influence our roadmap.

Yes! Every map in our collection can be purchased as a museum-quality print that we meticulously prepare by hand to ensure the highest quality. We offer a variety of sizes, framed or unframed. Click the “Buy Print” button on any map page to see your options.

Our maps are available in sizes ranging from 8"x10" to 24"x36". Every size can be purchased unframed or with a black, white, or red oak frame.

When you order, we use graphical editing software to clean up the scan image and arrange the borders to best fit your chosen size. We then send the final image to our print partner and email you with an expected delivery date.

We never alter the actual map content — the terrain, features, and historical markings are always preserved exactly as they are. We may adjust border elements for aesthetics and remove duplicate administrative stamps if they make the print look cluttered. Our goal is to give you a piece of art that's true to its history and looks great on your wall.

Our maps are printed on museum-quality thick matte paper sourced from Japan using water-based inkjet printing with Epson UltraChrome GS3 ink. Frames are made of ayous wood from renewable forests, 0.75" thick with an acrylite front. Framed maps ship with hanging hardware included.

We print close to you. Orders going to the US are printed and posted within the US, UK orders within the UK, and EU orders from within the EU — so in almost all cases UK and EU customers pay no customs charges and no import VAT on delivery. Everywhere else, we post from whichever partner facility is best placed to reach you. Shipping is free on every order, worldwide.

We submit your map for printing within two business days of your order. Printing typically takes 2-5 business days, plus shipping time based on your location. Shipping is free on all orders, worldwide. We'll email you with tracking once it ships.

Because we prepare each map by hand as orders come in, the preview images can't show your exact final layout. The previews are there to give you a sense of our frame styles and sizing.

We consider custom requests on a case-by-case basis — for example, maps centered on a specific area, focused on a subsection of a map, or composited from multiple maps. Email us at hello@pastmaps.com with the map(s) you're interested in and a brief description of what you'd like.