Licences and sources

Find Any Map indexes only maps whose archive record says they are in the public domain, and it shows you why for every map. This page explains what that means and where its limits are.

Sources

• Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division (via Wikimedia Commons)

  Hundreds of thousands of maps: Civil War and Revolutionary War maps, panoramic and bird's-eye views, county and land ownership atlases, railroad maps, world maps and atlases from the 1500s on, and the Sanborn fire insurance maps. Volunteers copied them to Wikimedia Commons with their catalogue records. We read each map's licence from its Commons file page and link to it.

• USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection

  Every edition of every topographic map the US Geological Survey published from 1884 on, read from The National Map. Maps made by the USGS are works of the US government and are not protected by copyright in the United States (17 U.S.C. 105).

• Other archives (via Wikimedia Commons)

  Maps from the New York Public Library's map division, the US National Archives, and public-domain historical atlases such as William R. Shepherd's Historical Atlas (1911) and Putzger's Historischer Schul-Atlas, each with the licence its Commons file page records.

Rules for what gets indexed

• Only files whose page carries a public-domain or CC0 licence with a reason (the maker died long ago, published before 1931, a US government work) are indexed. A bare “public domain mark” with no reason is left out.
• Files that also carry a Creative Commons BY or BY-SA licence, or a GFDL licence, are left out, even when they have a public-domain tag too. On the Phase 0 test this was about 1 file in 90, mostly modern redrawings and Flickr copies of old maps.
• Copies of maps from the David Rumsey Map Collection are left out: the collection licenses its scans for non-commercial use (CC BY-NC-SA), whatever the map's age.
• Files nominated for deletion on Commons, or missing their licence or source, are left out.

The “Safest licences” filter

Some maps are public domain because of their maker's life dates or their publication history: published in the US without a copyright notice before 1978, or never renewed. Wikimedia Commons volunteers research these, and they are usually right, but the proof rests on records you would have to check. The Safest filter keeps only the plainest cases:

Published before 1931

Works published in the US before 1931 entered the public domain by January 1, 2026.

US government work

Made by a federal agency such as the USGS, the US Army or the Coast Survey: no US copyright at all.

CC0

Dedicated to the public domain by the rights holder.

What “public domain” covers, and what it doesn't

A public-domain map can be copied, edited and used commercially without permission or payment. The archive's record is good evidence, but it isn't a guarantee, and the rules differ outside the United States. A map can also carry things that have their own rights, such as a trademark or a later artwork printed on it. For advertising or merchandise, check with the archive or a clearance service. Our terms say this in full.

Credit lines

Public-domain maps don't legally require credit, but the archives ask for it and it helps anyone checking your work later. Every map page has a credit line to copy, and in Claude the credits tool writes them for a whole set.

Report a problem

If you hold rights in a map we index, or a licence record looks wrong, email legal@wikivec.com with the map's link. We take maps out of the index while we check.