Maps

You will find our map collection of about 2000 items in our Map Room. Approximately half of our maps relate to Queensland, with some dating from 1842.

Type of Maps

The collection has five types of maps:

Cadastral

Shows property boundaries and subdivisions, areas, and landowners

Parish

Shows civil parishes, land owners, land boundaries, and land usage

Topographic

Shows roads, rivers, built-up areas, contours, and height information

Thematic

Shows specific features such as forests, agriculture, railways, government boundaries

Tourist

Shows places of interest, including national parks, forest reserves, camping areas, major industries, and historical sites

Road Atlas

Shows regional transportation systems, distances, and communications

We have a collection of digital maps; search the Library Catalogue for relevant CDs.

The Map Room

The Map Room has five vertical map cabinets and a horizontal plan cabinet. In addition, you will find library boxes of tourist maps, road maps, and National Geographic country maps.

The contents of the cabinets:

Cabinet 1

Historic Brisbane maps
Brisbane suburbs
Queensland Topographic
Geological Survey
Miscellaneous maps of NSW, WA, TAS, and SA
Maps showing Brisbane flood boundaries, stock routes, the 1864 freight systems, goldfields, and artesian bores

Cabinet 2

Queensland Parish maps showing towns, properties, land owners, roads, railways, creeks. These 570 Parish maps cover the coastal areas of Queensland and some parts of the Darling Downs, Maranoa, and Mitchell districts.

Cabinet 3

Military survey maps of England, Scotland and Wales for the period 1841–1870
Miscellaneous Irish maps
Topographic maps of various towns in the United Kingdom, dated around 1840

Cabinet 4

Topographic maps of Germany, 1930 series with a scale of 1 cm: 1 km

Cabinet 5

Queensland Two Mile and Four Mile series
Queensland irrigation
Commonwealth Electorates
Local Government areas

On the top of each map cabinet, you will find a folder detailing the maps in that particular cabinet.

For a more detailed description, see Guide to QFHS Map Collection.

Gazetteers

We hold gazetteers of the United Kingdom and Germany. Check the library catalogue for details of gazetteers on CD, microfiche, and microfilm.

If you have an enquiry about our collection, contact Maps.