About the resources

25 georeferenced maps of Edinburgh from 1765 to 1944 have been made freely available for onward use and georeferencing as downloadable JPEG images, KML SuperOverlays, Tile Map Services and Web Map Services. These include the most detailed and accurate maps of the city based on a direct survey, by William Edgar, John Ainslie, Robert and James Kirkwood, Bartholomew, W & AK Johnston, and Ordnance Survey.

A suite of useful boundary polygons have been captured and made available as shapefiles and KML files. These include the changing registration districts, wards and municipal boundaries for Edinburgh from 1865 to 1912, and the extension of the Royalty Boundary from 1685 to 1885. We have captured the boundaries and content of Kirkwood’s detailed cadastral map of landownership in Edinburgh in 1817. We have also captured the information from Bartholomew’s Chronological Map of the City of Edinburgh (1919), presenting this as a KML file so it can be overlaid on other maps.

A range of socio-economic data has been recorded and made available, also illustrating the background content to the dynamic thematic maps in the Map Builder application. Population details from the censuses from 1860 to 1920 have been recorded, including numbers of males, females, inhabited houses, and windows by registration district. The house rental values by sanitary districts have been recorded for 1874. Details of the occupants and their addresses in the various Edinburgh “colonies” in 1891 have also been made available.