Old maps of Mexico

Timeline of the Mexican map

Maps drawn before the Spanish arrived

Mesoamerica mapped itself, in a convention that outlived the conquest by a century: a place is a glyph rather than a dot (a hill for the ending -tepec, teeth for -tlan), a road is a line of footprints, a boundary a ring of markers round the edge, and the top of the sheet is usually east. The Codex Mendoza, painted about 1541 for Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, opens with a plan of Tenochtitlan quartered by canals and lists the tribute of some 400 towns. The lienzos, painted cloths from the Mixteca of Oaxaca and from Cuauhtinchan in Puebla, carry territory, dynasty and history on one surface. Philip II's survey of 1577 produced the Relaciones Geográficas: about 190 replies survive, 69 with a map, most painted by indigenous tlacuilos, so a Spanish compass rose can sit beside glyph writing on one sheet. Many of the places they record are ruins on the archaeological sites map.

How New Spain was actually divided

Before 1786 the viceroyalty was a stack of overlapping jurisdictions rather than a grid of provinces, which is why colonial maps rarely agree on internal boundaries. Two high courts divided it — the Audiencia of Mexico (1527) and the Audiencia of Nueva Galicia at Guadalajara from 1560 — and across them lay kingdoms and provinces: Nueva Vizcaya from Durango, the Nuevo Reino de León, Nuevo Santander (1748, today Tamaulipas), Yucatán from Mérida, and from 1776 a separate northern command, the Provincias Internas. Chiapas answered to Guatemala and only voted to join Mexico in 1824.

The Royal Ordinance of Intendants of 1786 replaced that patchwork with twelve intendancies named for their capitals: México, Puebla, Veracruz, Antequera (Oaxaca), Valladolid (Morelia), Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Guadalajara, Zacatecas, Durango, Arizpe and Mérida. Almost every one is a state or a state capital today: that map, not the audiencia map, is the ancestor of the federal republic.

The federal map of 1824

The 1824 Constitution listed 19 states and 4 territories, and four differences from the modern sheet stand out. Sonora and Sinaloa were one Estado Interno de Occidente until the split of 1830. Coahuila and Texas formed a single state, Coahuila y Tejas, governed from Saltillo and then Monclova. Alta California, Baja California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México were territories, as were Colima and Tlaxcala. And the State of México ran from Toluca to the Pacific, taking in all of today's Hidalgo, Morelos and Guerrero, less the Federal District cut out of it that year.

Departments, 1836 to 1867

The centralist constitution of 1836 abolished the states and replaced them with departamentos run from the capital — about two dozen, subdivided into districts and partidos — so maps of that decade show no state boundaries. The change cost the country Texas, which seceded in 1836, and nearly cost it Yucatán, independent in 1841–43 and again in 1846–48. Federal states returned in 1846 and were confirmed in 1857.

The last redivision was Maximilian's: a decree of 3 March 1865 cut the Second Empire into 50 departments named after rivers, mountains and small towns — Nazas, Batopilas, Valle de México — to dilute loyalty to the old states. The geographer Manuel Orozco y Berra drew it up. It lasted two years, but his Carta General del Imperio Mexicano outlived it, and Mexico's national map archive carries his name.

States that did not exist in 1824

Fourteen of today's 32 entities appear on no map of the first republic. A fifteenth hides: Nuevo León absorbed Coahuila from 1856, so sheets of those years show one oversized north-eastern state until Juárez decreed the separation in 1864.

Where the capital was

Mexico City is the seat of government under every map here: Tenochtitlan from 1325, capital of New Spain from 1535, capital of the republic since 1824. Maps of three periods mark a temporary capital instead — Querétaro in 1847–48 and 1916–17, and, as Juárez retreated from the French, San Luis Potosí, Saltillo, Chihuahua and Paso del Norte, renamed Ciudad Juárez in 1888.

Reading an old map of Mexico

Four features date a map quickly. First, the northern extent: any map showing Alta California or Texas as Mexican is 1821–1848, and the shape of the northern line separates 1848 from 1853 — see the US–Mexico border map for the two versions. Second, the territorial divisions: intendencias mean 1786–1821, departamentos mean the centralist republics (1836–46) or the Empire (1864–67), estados mean a federal period. Third, the spelling: 'México' with an x is standard after independence; 'Méjico' is common in 19th-century Spanish printing and colonial Anglo-American maps often write 'New Spain' or 'Nueva España'. Fourth, count the states against the table above and the map of Mexico today, or trace them onto a blank outline map: a sheet with Guerrero but no Hidalgo can only be 1849–69.

Original sheet or modern reprint

A copperplate engraving leaves a plate mark, a faint impressed rectangle a few millimetres outside the printed border, and under a loupe its line is continuous and varies in width; a reproduction made from a scan breaks into a regular grid of halftone or inkjet dots. Hand paper made before about 1800 shows chain lines roughly 25 mm apart and often a watermark against the light. Atlas sheets carry a centre fold and letterpress on the back; a facsimile has a blank white verso, trimmed to a modern paper size. Uniform brown toning is printed, genuine foxing irregular.

Maps worth knowing

• Humboldt's Carte générale du royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne (1811) — the first scientifically surveyed map of Mexico, based on his 1803–04 travels.
• Disturnell's Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico (1847) — the map annexed to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; its errors caused a decade of boundary disputes.
• García Cubas, Atlas geográfico (1858) — the first national atlas made in Mexico, one sheet per state.
• Carta General de la República Mexicana (1890, 1899) — the government's large-scale wall maps that fixed the modern state outlines.

Where to find originals

Search 'Mexico' plus a date range at the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the David Rumsey Map Collection (over 1,000 Mexico sheets, all free to download), Gallica, and the Mapoteca Manuel Orozco y Berra in Mexico City, which holds Disturnell's treaty map. The Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas holds many of the Relaciones Geográficas. Scans of pre-1929 maps are in the public domain.

Questions about historical maps of Mexico

Where can I download old maps of Mexico for free?

The Library of Congress (loc.gov/maps), the David Rumsey Map Collection, Mapoteca Manuel Orozco y Berra (Mexico's national map archive), the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica) and Wikimedia Commons all hold public-domain scans. Maps published before 1929 are out of copyright in the US.

How much of Mexico did the United States take in 1848?

About 1.36 million km² — 55% of Mexico's pre-war territory, including all of present-day California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Texas (independent from 1836) had already been annexed in 1845.

What was New Spain?

The Spanish viceroyalty (1535–1821) that covered Mexico, Central America to Costa Rica, the US Southwest, Florida, the Caribbean islands and the Philippines. Its maps are the earliest to show the territory as a unit.

Which of today's states did not exist in 1824?

Fourteen of them. Sonora and Sinaloa were one state until 1830; Guerrero dates from 1849, Campeche from 1863, Hidalgo and Morelos from 1869, Nayarit from 1917, Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur from 1974.

What map was attached to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?

Disturnell's Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico (1847). It placed El Paso and the Rio Grande tens of kilometres out of position, so the treaty line could not be surveyed as written; the argument was settled by the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.