United States news

A zoom in on the Mississippi River, with the Arkansas river to the upper left. Arkansas is spelt how it's pronounced- with a W at the end.

Map of the Month: April 2024

The political boundaries of North America have gone through many changes. As part of New Spain, Central America was known as the Captaincy General of Guatemala, or the Kingdom of Guatemala. The territory of Mexico used to contain the entire southwestern United States, and extended as far north as th...

Screenshot of the 1918 National Parks and Monuments Online Web App showing a digitized version with information on Grand Canyon National Park shown.

New Web Application: 1918 National Parks and Monuments

A new Web App, 1918 National Parks and Monuments, is now live on ASU Geodata. This App digitizes a map of the National Park and Monument system in its infancy and overlays it across a modern map of the United States, allowing the user to explore the NPS two years after its creation. ...

A subsection of the National Parks and Monuments map showing a portion of the California-Nevada Border. Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park are prominent, with red boundaries separating them from the green national forest boundaries.

Map of the Month: March 2024

The United States National Park Service (NPS) currently administers 63 National Parks and 85 National Monuments, among the astonishing 423 total areas managed by the agency. That scope wasn’t always so large. In the years after its 1916 inception, the NPS oversaw only a small fraction of the nationa...

A zoom in on the troop positions to show them in greater detail. The names of regiments and divisions, as well as the names of their commanding officers can be seen, and descriptions of fortifications such as trenches and gun emplacements

Map of the Month: November 2023

In 1898, Cuba was in the midst of a bloody war for independence from Spain that had been raging for three years. American public opinion swayed dramatically towards support through the 1890s, especially with American journalists fully embracing Yellow Journalism to exaggerate and embellish the atroc...

Johnson’s California, Territories of New Mexico and Utah, Map depicting the Southwest U.S. Territories of New Mexico, Utah, and the States of California and Colorado as they were in 1862. Zoomed over modern day Arizona.

Map of the Month: August 2023

One hundred and sixty one years ago, the American Civil War was raging all across the country. During the height of this conflict, The Territory of Arizona was officially established in February of 1863. Efforts to create the Arizona Territory had been ongoing since at least 1856, with a few maps sh...

Magnification of the Northwest United States featuring Yellowstone National Park and surrounding National and State Forest sites.

Map of the Month: July 2023

Our July Map of the Month is this 1934 “National Forests, State Forests, National Parks, National Monuments, and Indian Reservations” by the U.S Department of Agriculture and the U.S Forest Service. This historic map acts as a point of reference to compare how much land in the United States has been...

New England magnified to show differing territories of Pennsylvania (spelled Pensilvania), New York, New Hampshire, and Maine

Map of the Month: January 2023

Happy New Year! Our January Map of the Month is this map titled “North America Drawn from the Latest and Best Authorities” that is believed to be from the 1780s. It was made by Thomas Kitchin, an English cartographer and engraver, and displays the entirety of the North American continent as had been...

The Wilson Family's 1928 Trans-Continental Trip

Automobile Road Map of the United States Showing Transcontinental Routes and Other Main Highways Automobile Road Map of the United States Showing Transcontinental Routes and Other Main Highways Automobile Club of Washington 1925 ...