Fire Insurance Maps
Search a city or explore the map: zoom from the whole country to a state, then to each city and its map books. Additional states, cities, publishers, and editions will be added as the collection expands.
Open a state's book to see its counties and cities.
Alabama93 cities · 4,609 sheets1884–1956
Alaska18 cities · 68 sheets1904–1948
Arizona43 cities · 1,676 sheets1886–1958
Arkansas180 cities · 4,563 sheets1885–1954
California286 cities · 4,770 sheets1884–1928
Colorado33 cities · 1,109 sheets1883–1942
Connecticut96 cities · 7,418 sheets1884–1962
Delaware23 cities · 605 sheets1884–1958
Florida115 cities · 5,178 sheets1884–1960
Georgia142 cities · 5,437 sheets1884–1958
Hawaii19 cities · 1,355 sheets1914–1957
Idaho125 cities · 2,431 sheets1884–1956
Indiana293 cities · 15,588 sheets1883–1962
Iowa319 cities · 8,819 sheets1883–1962
Kansas218 cities · 6,938 sheets1883–1957
Kentucky129 cities · 6,773 sheets1866–1958
Louisiana138 cities · 6,252 sheets1885–1963
Maine142 cities · 3,873 sheets1844–1957
Maryland84 cities · 7,456 sheets1885–1960
Michigan296 cities · 13,272 sheets1883–1963
Minnesota56 cities · 2,160 sheets1884–1951
Mississippi96 cities · 3,076 sheets1885–1952
Missouri336 cities · 9,523 sheets1870–1957
Montana18 cities · 471 sheets1884–1957
Nebraska114 cities · 3,217 sheets1864–1962
Nevada27 cities · 623 sheets1885–1955
New Hampshire86 cities · 2,956 sheets1879–1956
New Mexico39 cities · 1,398 sheets1883–1957
North Carolina125 cities · 7,003 sheets1884–1958
North Dakota27 cities · 935 sheets1884–1958
Ohio273 cities · 6,203 sheets1845–1899
Oklahoma310 cities · 7,270 sheets1886–1962
Oregon159 cities · 4,829 sheets1884–1962
Rhode Island29 cities · 4,323 sheets1884–1963
South Carolina76 cities · 3,329 sheets1884–1961
South Dakota82 cities · 1,672 sheets1883–1941
Tennessee102 cities · 10,304 sheets1884–1963
Utah57 cities · 2,563 sheets1884–1950
Vermont62 cities · 2,246 sheets1879–1950
Virginia57 cities · 1,355 sheets1855–1922
Washington238 cities · 9,959 sheets1884–1980
West Virginia77 cities · 3,573 sheets1884–1955
Wisconsin251 cities · 8,963 sheets1883–1957
Wyoming40 cities · 937 sheets1883–1944Fire Insurance Maps are among the most detailed historical maps ever produced of American cities and towns. Created primarily between the late 1800s and the mid-1900s by publishers such as the Sanborn Map Company, E. Hexamer & Sons, Baist, Perris, and others, these maps were originally developed to help fire insurance companies assess the construction, occupancy, and fire risk of individual buildings.
Unlike ordinary street maps, Fire Insurance Maps document remarkable detail at the building level. They identify building footprints, construction materials, number of stories, building use, street names, property boundaries, railroads, utilities, industrial facilities, water systems, and other features that often cannot be found on contemporary maps.
Today, Fire Insurance Maps are an indispensable resource for historians, genealogists, archaeologists, architects, preservationists, environmental consultants, planners, surveyors, and property researchers. They provide a unique window into how American communities evolved over time and are frequently used to trace historical land use, identify former industrial operations, document building history, support environmental due diligence, and understand the growth and transformation of cities and neighborhoods.
Our Fire Insurance Map Directory allows you to browse available maps by state, county, city, publisher, and year, making it easy to discover historical map coverage for locations across the United States.
On every sheet
Are Sanborn maps still protected by copyright? Search by state and copyright period to identify recorded copyright renewals, determine which maps may be in the public domain, and see when existing copyright protection expires.
Choose a state and the map's copyright date, then search to find out whether a Sanborn map has renewed and is under copyright or likely in the public domain.