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Syracuse University Libraries

Maps and Cartographic resources: Sanborn / Fire Insurance Maps

Come to the Map Room and travel the world. The collection has cartographic and reference materials in a variety of formats that cover the entire Earth.

Sanborns in the Map Collection

 The Map Room has holdings for all of New York State in either print, micro, or online format. Registered SUL patrons have access to the National Sanborn Image Archive database (1870-1960) available through the Library's Database menu. The Map Collection also has microfilm of many of the northeastern states from 1960-1990.

The Map Collection also has insurance atlases for Syracuse from Vose (1892) and Hopkins (1908, 1924, 1938) in print. There are also print Sanborn volumes for New York City from 1908 - 1978.

Sanborn Atlas Information

The Sanborn Map Co. was a company that made maps for the fire insurance industry. Since 1867 they have made atlases and maps for more than 12,000 towns and cities across the United States. The maps show building footprints, building dimensions, property line locations, and street right-of-ways at a very detailed scale. Structures were given different colors according to the type of building material they were made from.

Sanborns in Digitial formats

Here you will find the Sanborn covererage for cities, towns and communities thoughout the entire United States from 1867 to around 1960. The archive contains more than 660,000 maps.

Syracuse Sanborn map indexes

 This list of PDF maps show the volume boundaries for the city of Syracuse and the suburbs through time.

Syracuse Sanborn atlases 1892

The links below provide full color access to the two volumes of the 1892 Sanborn Fire Insurance atlas for city of Syracuse New York. The links are from the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress.

Sanborn map indexes - NYC

This list of PDF maps show the area covered by each volume for each of the five Boroughs of New York City through time.