Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and vicinity, 1896 (Raster Image)

USGS maps are typical topographic maps portraying both natural and manmade features. They show and name works of nature, such as mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers, vegetation, etc. They also identify the principal works of humans, such as roads, railroads, boundaries, transmission lines, major buildings, etc.

Relief is shown with standard contour intervals of 20 feet. This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps from The Harvard Map Collection as part of the Imaging the Urban Environment project. Maps selected for this project represent major urban areas and cities of the world, at various time periods.

These maps typically portray both natural and manmade features at a large scale. The selection represents a range of regions, originators, ground condition dates, scales, and purposes.