Map Series Timelines

It can be difficult to grasp how all the historical maps available through the Historic Digimap interface relate to one another. The publishing date ranges of each Map Series over lap, meaning that there is not a clear sequential flow from one map series edition to the next.

This is especially true for map editions in the post World War II National resurvey to the National Grid. As the whole of Great Britain was being re-surveyed, those areas surveyed first were being resurveyed and resurveyed again for revised maps well before more "remote" areas of the country were surveyed for a first edition National Grid map.

So where as one location may by 1975 have a first and second edition National Grid map, a second location may still only have a pre World War II County Series map.

The relationship between the Map Series is further confused by the way Landmark Information Group (which digitised the paper historical maps) organised the maps into temporal layers called "Epochs". Although these "Epoch" layers are useful in terms of using the historical map data in a Geographical Information System, they do not always relate directly to a specific Map Series (again, this is especially true for post World War II National Grid Mapping).

The "timeline" diagrams available via this help page have been created to help you visualise the temporal relationship between the Landmark Epochs and the Map Series and Editions they contain. Because the images are quite wide, only small images are included on this page. To view the full size image, click on the image you want to view and the full size image will open in your web browser. If you have problems viewing it in your web browser, right click on the diagram image to either save it to your computer or copy and paste it into your preferred image viewing software.

Time line of publishing date ranges for all map series, in all Landmark Epochs

Click on the small image below to view the full size timeline image.

Historical map series timeline thumbnail

Time line of publishing date ranges for post World War II National Grid Mapping (Landmark Epochs 5-9)

Click on the small image below to view the full size timeline image.

Historical national grid map series timeline thumbnail

Time line of Landmark Epochs for 1:10,000/1:10,560 scale National Grid mapping compared with that for actual publication of 1:10,000/1:10,560 scale National Grid map editions

Click on the small image below to view the full size timeline image.

Historical national grid map series timeline thumbnail