Sanborn maps are large scale street plans showing the outline of each building including the location of windows and doors together with street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use and house and block numbers. These maps are heavily used in both public and academic libraries by a wide range of researchers including local historians to locate and identify buildings and neighbourhoods, urban historians to study the growth of towns and cities and environmentalists concerned about impact of new developments.

Since few extensive sets of Sanborn maps exist, the purpose of this microfilm edition is to make available a complete set for the whole of the United States. The edition is in two parts - Part I, 1867-1950, Part II, 1950-1970 - and contains more than 660,000 maps of 10,000 American towns and cities available by state and by individual city. Full details of states and cities are given in the Price List.

Microfilm 1,099 reels