DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10519306
title: WELCOME to the "Old Survey of India Maps" Collection

description:                WELCOME to the "Old Survey of India Maps" community on Zenodo.org

"Old Survey of India Maps" is exactly what it sounds like--a community of people dedicated to the collection, study, display, and preservation of the work of one of the greatest mapping enterprises the world has seen. 

In its day, the work of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India was considered one of the great scientific achievements of its time.  The GTS engaged not only in the detailed mapping of a sub-continent of vast proportions, but was also first to accurately measure the exact shape of the earth.  Due to the sensitivity of this work, many of the resulting maps today are found only in a few dusty libraries and archives, and are not available to the people of the areas mapped.  But these old maps have now been replaced by far superior satellite imagery and GPS systems, and restrictions on the display and distribution of the old maps have been lifted.  Thus the time is ripe to build a collection of these old maps on the internet, where they can be seen, studied and appreciated by as wide an audience as possible.

The maps of the Survey of India were produced in different ‘eras’, each with distinct map characteristics.

·       The first era ran from the founding of the Survey is 1767 until the completion of the triangulation system covering the sub-continent around 1879.  During this era ‘route surveys’ were conducted, and maps of various territories produced, often without clearly defined ‘standards’ for mapmaking.  The lack of an accurate over-arching grid to accurately fix the position of any point meant the individual maps often did not ‘fit together’ properly;

·       The 2nd era, beginning around 1880 until 1905, used the accurately located points of the newly-available triangulated grid to produce detailed topo maps, usually at a scale of ‘one inch to the mile’ (1:63,360) or smaller.  These maps are identified by their “double-wide” shape—30 minutes wide by 15 minutes high. 

·       The 3rd era began when the “Report of the Indian Survey Committee 1904-05” recommended a wide-ranging set of changes to the mapping system, including a switch to “One Inch” topo maps 15 minutes wide by 15 minutes high, and half-inch and quarter-inch maps for the smaller scales.  This era lasted through Indian Independence in 1947 until about 1960.

·       The 4th era saw the switch from Imperial to metric scales, such that new maps with scale 1:50,000 replaced the old 1:63,360 scale maps, and the old 1:253, 440 scale maps with 1:250,000 scale.  This metric scale continues today, while new 1:25,000 scale maps, becoming available over the last few decades, may gradually replace the more common 1:50,000 maps.

The Old Survey of India Maps community attempts to collect topo maps from each of these eras for as wide an area, and as many different issue dates, as possible.  The collection, as of January 1, 2026, numbers approximately 30,000 map sheets, broken down into 15 categories.  Each of these categories can be accessed by clicking its link in the contents list below. 

The Old Survey of India Maps community is eager to obtain additional high-resolution scans of maps missing from the present collection.  Information regarding the availability of such scans should be sent to John Brown using the email address OldSurveyOfIndiaMaps@gmail.com.  Viewers of this map collection are also requested to consider where paper sheets of additional maps not might be available for scanning, and to relay this information to the same email address.

The file category names listed in the Table of Contents below are actually links to files of various map categories.  For map categories with a large number of files the links will open a new window where a compressed .zip file will be found with maps of that particular category.  On the other hand, if there are fewer map files in a particular category, the link will open a Zenodo record in a new windown with links to individual files for download.
description: 1.  Atlas of India Maps--20260109  253k scale

2.  Southern Asia Series, 2000k scale

3.  1000k scale Maps of South Asia, 

4.  500 or 506k scale Maps of South Asia

5.  253k scale Maps of South Asia and Burma--Quad 2 to 106--20260106  

6.  126k Maps of South Asia and Burma--Quad 2 to 102--20260105 

7.   63 or 50k scale Maps of South Asia Quads 30 to 102

8.  Early India Provincial Topo Maps This set of maps have been superseeded.  All these maps have been renamed using the standard Survey of India number letter number (eg 83 A]14) indexing system, and are now included in the Item 7, 63k or 50k scale Maps of South Asia, immediately above.  Additional maps of the same type will now be included in Item 7 as they become available.

9.  Historical Maps of the Survey of India (1700-1900) Be patient, opens slowly

10. MRIO - Miscellaneous Maps of the Survey of India (1742-1872) Be patient, opens slowly

11. Trans-Frontier Maps of the Survey of India

12.  Pundit Maps

13.   Asia Boundary Maps in sets

14.   General Maps, not in sets

15.   Maps Under Construction

16.  Old Reports and Documents of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India    An India-based website, www.pahar.in  has built a comprehensive collection of documents by and about the Survey of India.  Here are links to various segments of this collection.