The William Smith Map of 1815 - Folded Map

The William Smith Map of 1815

Original Title: "A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales with part of Scotland; exhibiting the collieries and mines, the marshes and fen lands originally overflowed by the sea, and the Varieties of Soil according to the variations in the Substrata, illustrated by the most Descriptive Names by W Smith."

Map Size: 133 x 93cm approx.

Map Scale: 10 miles to the inch

William Smith's famous 1815 geological map of 'England and Wales with part of Scotland' was issued between 2nd Nov 1815 and 17th Dec 1815. The original map was never published as a single sheet: the large size of the original, and the size of the printing presses in the early 19th century, meant that it had to be published in fifteen sections, each folded into six 'panels'. This reproduction was produced by scanning the original panels held in the BGS Library, and digitally removing the joins.

At its original scale of five miles to the inch, the map would have been eight feet long by six feet wide (if it had been published as a single sheet): this version is published at half scale: ten miles to the inch, and is colour-matched to the original.

This map is also available as a flat/rolled map sheet

There is also a facsimile of William Smith's Memoir available