Northern Territory Library Map Collections
Information about maps held in the Northern Territory Library can be found on our catalogue.
Mapping Project News
The National Library of Australia is pleased to announce the cataloguing and digitisation of all its Australia 1:253,440 national topographic map series sheets (4 miles to the inch).
This series began in 1942 as an emergency response to the Japanese threat, and the almost complete lack of national topographic mapping. The series was continued post-war, with increasing detail and under various national or state specifications, but was replaced c.1960 by metric 1:250,000 scale mapping. The 340 sheets have been individually catalogued and digitised.
Australia | Australasia | Northern Territory | Environmental | Heritage | Languages | Marine | Political
Australia
Australia on the Map
The Australia on the Map Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society was formed following the 400 year jubilee of the first European visits to Australia. The site focuses on maritime contact history. The site now includes an English translation of the 1602 "Octrooi" or 1602 Charter of the Dutch East Indies Company.
Fundamentals of Mapping
This educational resource prepared by the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) offers a comprehensive overview to maps and the mapping process - with particular reference to Australia and New Zealand. The site includes teaching resources.
The Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) was established by the Prime Minister, State Premiers, and the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory in 1988. Since that time the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand have joined ICSM. The Australian Defence forces are also represented on ICSM.
Geoscience Portal
Geoscience Portal is an initiative of the Australian Chief Government Geologists Committee. It is aimed at providing a portal to link information from State, Territory and Australian Government geoscience agencies.
Maps of Australia
New resource provided by the National Library of Australia. Search over 100,000 maps of Australia held in Australia's libraries, from the earliest mapping to the present.
National Regional Profile
The NRP is a unique release, containing ABS and non-ABS data for over 2,000 regions across Australia, in a five year time series.
Roads and Railways of Australia
The latest version of an amazing personal project which overlays Google Earth, with road and railway data, including new features such as proposed lines. The North Australia Railway can be seen together with the current North – South Railway line.
Trove
Free collaborative service based at the National Library of Australia. Search maps of Australia and the world. Includes printed sheets, atlases, globes, aerial photographs, star charts, nautical charts and tourist maps.
University of Melbourne
This well constructed page, put together by the University of Melbourne, is an excellent reference place focusing on Australian sites. For general and international mapping the site also links through to other comprehensive digital services. Sites listed on this page are regularly checked to ensure the linked sites are still operational.
Australasia
- New Zealand mainland only (NZTM2000) based on the New Zealand Transverse Mercator 2000 (NZTM2000) projection.
- Faster viewing option - all map information is combined into one layer and tiled.
- New Zealand & offshore Islands (NZGD2000)
- Chatham Islands (CITM2000)
Northern Territory
Aerial Photography Archive
Aerial photography is captured primarily for the purposes of producing topographic mapping. The Aerial Photography Archive consists of in excess of 350,000 photographs dating back to the 1940s.
Bushtel
Bushtel is a central point for information about the regions in the Northern Territory, its people and communities, its cultural and historical influences and the statistics and data that allow for informed decision-making.
It is designed as a “one-stop shop” for information from many different Northern Territory Government agencies. It allows instant access to vital sources of information such as population statistics, maps, aerial photographs, health and emergency services, schools, building plans and key contacts for communities and regions.
There are links to other Territory government services and data banks such as Building Assets Management Services (BAMS) and SLAP (Serviced Land Availability Program) Maps.
The archives available for research at the Northern Territory Archives Service (NTAS) all relate to the Northern Territory. Most of the archives were created within the Northern Territory. This list of holdings is a guide only.
NT Atlas and Spatial Data Directory
NT Atlas is an online application allowing users to view and query some of the more commonly used Northern Territory Government spatial datasets. The NT Atlas provides an interface to the NT Spatial Data Directory (NTSDD)
Northern Territory Land Information System (NTLIS)
Collection of historical and modern information services offered to the public by NTLIS.
Tourism Maps and Itineraries - TravelNT.com
TravelNT.com is the Official Travel Site for the Northern territory - containing a wealth of travel information, including a number of maps and itineraries for travellers
Environmental
The Atlas of Living Australia project enables free access to Australian biodiversity information online. We are a collaborative, Australian Government-funded initiative focused on making biodiversity information more accessible and useable.
Natural Resources, Environment, The Arts and Sport
NRETAS maps provides a web mapping application for the discovery, interrogation and mapping of natural and cultural resource data and information for the Northern Territory. Sites of conservation significance in the Northern Territory
Natural resources of the Tiwi Islands
Set of pdf atlas maps of the natural resources of the Tiwi Islands.
Ozcoasts Climate Change Sea level Rise Maps
With around 85% of Australia's population living in the coastal zone, rising sea levels and storm surges will have significant impacts on many of our coastal towns and cities. Understanding the risks to infrastructure and private property is particularly important for highly populated urban areas.
The Australian Government has developed a series of initial sea level rise maps to illustrate the potential impacts of climate change for key urban areas.
Weather
This website has up-to-the-minute maps of Australia showing current and forecast meteorological conditions including forecasts: national and for each state/territory; current conditions; weather charts: synoptic charts (top one is the current one and includes the location of jet streams) and GFS model charts; satellite images; weather radar; and warnings.
Heritage
Cartobibliography of the Maps in 18th Century British and American Geography Books/ Barbara McCorkle
This cartobibliography contains descriptions of approximately 6700 maps found in 470 books. Entries are arranged alphabetically by author/title, and each entry lists every map included in the book with the full title, dimensions, name(s) of any publisher, engraver or cartographer appearing on the map, and the page location within the work cited. There are three indexes: cartographer/engraver, geographic and publisher.
The OldMapsOnline Portal is an easy-to-use gateway to historical maps in libraries around the world.
It allows the user to search for online digital historical maps across numerous different collections via a geographical search. Search by typing a place-name or by clicking in the map window, and narrow by date. The search results provide a direct link to the map image on the website of the host institution.
Place Names Committee for the Northern Territory
The Place Names Register, as established under Section 11B of the Place Names Act contains all known information on approved place names, be they a road, park or natural feature in the Northern Territory.
Want to know where a place is, its correct spelling or how it was named and why, then Search the Register.
The Register is continually being updated and new place names added, so what you read today may be different tomorrow.
The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use
Includes links to National Organisations around the world for names of populated places and features throughout the world, under the sea and out into space.
Mapped Spanish, British and Dutch shipping 1750 - 1800
The creation of this dataset was completed as part of the Climatological Database for the World’s Oceans 1750-1850 (CLIWOC) project. The routes are plotted from the lat/long positions derived from the ships’ logs. Routes where there was a gap of over 1000km between known points have been removed. The British, Spanish and Dutch had very different trading priorities over this period.
Heritage - Digital Project
MapStory
Mapstory empowers a global community to organize knowledge about the world spatially and temporally. With MapStory, people of all kinds turn into Storytellers who can create, share, and collaborate on MapStories and ultimately improve our understanding of global dynamics, worldwide, over the course of history.
Heritage - Dutch East Indies
Royal Tropical Institute
KIT has digitized its remarkable historical map collection and made it available online. One of the largest collections of maps of the former Dutch colonies is thereby accessible via Internet for scientists, cartographers and other interested parties in the Netherlands and abroad.
Heritage - Europe
DIGMAP
DIGMAP is the name of a project linking major European digital map libraries, especially focused on historical materials. The main purpose was to develop a specialized service, reusing metadata from European national libraries, to provide discovery and access to contents provided by those libraries. Relevant metadata from third party sources was also reused, as also descriptions and references to any other relevant external resource. The National Library is now linked into this project.
Languages
AFL Players’ Indigenous Map
The AFL Players' Association acknowledges and recognises the diversity of Indigenous cultures with more than 250 distinct language groups across Australia. The 2012 Indigenous AFL Players represent 41 of these language or cultural groups.
Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages
The Australian Research Council has provided funding for a digital archive of endangered literature in more than 16 Australian Indigenous languages from the NT. Charles Darwin University, Australian National University and the Northern Territory Department are collaborating on this project.
Our Languages
Language is at the core of cultural identity. It links people to their land, it projects history through story and song, it holds the key to kinship systems and to the intricacies of tribal law including spirituality, secret/sacred objects and rites. Language is a major factor in people retaining their cultural identity and many say "if the Language is strong, then Culture is strong". (ATSIC 2000)
The population of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is extremely diverse in its culture with many different languages spoken.
Yan-nhangu Dictionary Publishing Project
95 years young ‘Big Boss’ Laurie Baymarrwangga, has launched a new project amid renewed calls to save Australia’s threatened Indigenous languages.
The 2012 Senior Australian of the year is working on a trilingual Yan-nhangu Dictionary Publishing Project that she hopes will be distributed to every primary school in Australia. Working from her homeland on remote Murrungga Island in the Crocodile Islands, North East Arnhem Land, she is creating this three language learning resource to protect her rare language Yan-nhangu and promote another living language Dhuwal/a with some 7000 speakers. The project will also encourage English-bilingual learning and Indigenous language education across Australia.
Marine
Australian Ocean Data Network Portal
This portal is the primary access point for search, discovery, access and download of data collected by the Australian marine community. Primary datasets are contributed by the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) an Australian Government Research Infrastructure project, and the six Commonwealth Agencies with responsibilities in the Australian marine jurisdiction (Australian Antarctic Division, Australian Institute for Marine Science, Bureau of Meteorology, Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation, Geoscience Australia and the Royal Australian Navy).
Geoscience Australia Marine and Coastal
Geoscience Australia's Marine and Coastal activities provide data, technical information, advice and research for maritime boundary definition, regional marine planning and environmental management. Their diversity reflects Australia's long coastline (almost 60,000 km in length) and large offshore jurisdiction (potentially more than one and a half times the area of the onshore).
Political
The Northern Territory Government Gazette G & S Series
These gazettes contain details of all declared legislated changes such as those occurring with new quarantine areas, intervention etc.
UNOSAT
UNOSAT is the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Programme,
implemented in co-operation with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).The maps available from this page are those produced or facilitated by UNOSAT for the humanitarian community. Please credit UNOSAT and/or the original source if this information is used in a report, project etc.
Additional products including satellite images and thematic maps can be provided by UNOSAT on request.