This fully illustrated talk will examine the history of the city through 20 selected maps of Edinburgh, dating from the 1530s through to the present day. At one level, these maps show a rapidly changing and expanding city over time, with maps growing in detail and content. At another level, the different selection of content in these maps, their changing purposes, their omissions and their changing audiences reveal much more about life within Edinburgh. The talk will also look at the changing way these maps were made, and by whom, charting the rise and fall of Edinburgh as a centre of map publication.

Speaker

Chris Fleet

Chris Fleet is Map Curator at the National Library of Scotland, where he has worked since 1994. His primary responsibilities have been with digital maps and the Library’s maps website. He has also researched and spoken on the Library’s map collections, and is a co-author of Edinburgh: Mapping the City (2014).