Hours: Sun-Thu to midnight, Fri to 9pm, Sat to 8pm

Contact: (434) 243-8800 or Send a Message

Directions | Fax & Mail | Reservations | Policies

Maps | GIS | Aerial photographs | Statistics | Images | Planning Documents | City Resources Home

Digital Maps and Images

Digital Sanborn Maps of Philadelphia

• The Scholars' Lab provides access to Sanborn Fire Insurance maps for Philadelphia, provided through Proquest/UMI. These black and white maps are digitized versions of a microfilm collection of Sanborn maps collected at the Library of Congress. The Proquest/UMI collection is restricted to UVa faculty, staff and students.

Other Maps and Charts

• Maps produced by the City of Philadelphia, including:
  • Philadelphia City Planning Commission maps (including demographic and district maps)
  • Philadelphia bicycle maps
  • Philadelphia zoning map, searchable by address
• MPIP2005: The Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators project combines information on a set of social, environmental, and economic indicators that track important trends in the region, particularly indicators portraying the quality of life in the region's communities, with an annual household survey conducted by Temple's Institute for Survey Research. In the Map/Data section, there are data and maps of the great Philadelphia area for downloading. Note: Requires registration the first time you visit.
• Transit maps from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority
• More map sources can be found on the national-level resources page.

GIS Data

Other Sources of GIS Data

• Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission GIS Mapping Center: Provides online mapping applications for the Delaware Valley region, including some coverage of Philadelphia.
• Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA) : The Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access is Pennsylvania's official geospatial information clearinghouse and the Commonwealth's node on the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). PASDA was developed as a service to the citizens, governments, and businesses of the Commonwealth. PASDA is a collaborative project of the Pennsylvania State University and the Pennsylvania Geospatial Information Council.
• Philadelphia NIS NeighborhoodBase: The University of Pennsylvania's Neighborhood Base contains a wide variety of helpful spatial and statistical data for Philadelphia's neighborhoods.
• More GIS sources can be found on the national-level resources page.

Scanned Aerial Photos

• Aerial photography map from the City of Philadelphia, searchable by address
• More aerial photography sources can be found on the national-level resources page.

Statistical Data

• MPIP2005: See description above under Maps.
• The Philadelphia City Planning Commission offers census and property data, plus reports in PDF format.
• Philadelphia NIS NeighborhoodBase: The University of Pennsylvania's Neighborhood Base contains a wide variety of helpful spatial and statistical data for Philadelphia's neighborhoods.
• U.S. Census factsheets from American Factfinder:
  • Quick census facts for Philadelphia (2000 and 2004)
  • More Philadelphia data sets from the Census Bureau
• More statistical sources can be found on the national-level resources page.

Photographs and Views of the City

• Philadelphia Historical Digital Image Library: The Philadelphia Historical Digital Image Library is a grant-funded collaborative effort between the Scott Memorial Library of Thomas Jefferson University and The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Contains over 3,000 images, all searchable and accessible online.
• Philadelphia Photo Archive: The City's photo archive contains over 2 million photo records that date from the late 1800's. This web site has a subset of those photos - currently about 35,000. All archive photos may be searched by keyword and date. Archive photos which have been assigned a geographic location are also searchable by proximity to an Address, Intersection, Place Name, or Neighborhood.
• More photograph sources can be found on the national-level resources page.

Planning and Architectural Documents

• Some Philadelphia planning information can be found at the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative's site.
• Philadelphia City Planning Commission provides study reports, publications, zoning information of the city.
• The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has research collections in architectural history and neighborhood history, among other topics. Most of their holdings are offline, but can be searched via their catalog.
• The View From Mid-Century: Philadelphia's Comprehensive City Plan of 1960, made by Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
• Comprehensive Expressway Plan (1966) from Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The Plan for West Philadelphia is presented by the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and was first published in June, 1994.

Philadelphia Architects and Buildings is a publicly-accessible database of data and images from the collections of more than 25 Philadelphia-area repositories. Includes architectural and historical information and images for 35,000+ structures, mostly in Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties, including all those on the Philadelphia Historical Commission list of significant buildings, and the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission�s inventory of historic structures.