Knowing history can help you at understanding the present and predict the future. Old maps are one of the crucial elements in exploring our past. But where can you get a specific map for your school project or just satisfy your curiosity? Here is a growing list of free resources, with maps that are for whatever reason put in the Public Domain, but often still need to be attributed:
1. Wikipedia.org
It's probably the first thought of the younger generation no matter what kind of information you are looking for. Old maps are just a tiny part of a huge resource of graphic materials available on Wikipedia or one of its sister pages.
This map, for instance, shows the map of Mediterranean countries in 231 BC. It was drawn by a volunteer who decided to put it in Public Domain which means anybody can use it for any purpose. Do you want to print it on a T-shirt and sell it? No problem!
Here is another old map, this time of now almost forgotten Kingdom of Sicily.
Beware! Not all the images on Wikimedia are in Public Domain. Most of them are available under so called Creative Licence 3.0 or 4.0 which means that some kind of attribution is required.
2. Livius.org
This is a very lovely site of ancient history. Numerous free maps are part of it but it offers a lot more, including photos and other useful data for your exploration of the ancient past. You can also order printed maps in high resolution for a reasonable price, a way to cover the expenses of the site. If you need one for your presentation, order soon enough to get it through the classic mail.
This is just one of the examples of old maps available at Livius. This page recently moved from HTTP to HTTPS protocol and the search function can't give you as much as it would without this change. If you decide to use the search function (believe me, you can spend hours finding more and more interesting results), you'll also find help to find pages existing at Livius that are not covered with the search option.
3. NYPL.org
New York Public Library offers a lot of materials online, free and almost without restrictions, just perfect for every web-based explorer who needs authentic documents and other info for his project. In 2014 they decided to digitize more than 20 thousand (!) old maps and put them online free of charge, mostly in Public Domain, so everybody gets a chance to see how our world looked a few decades or centuries ago.
This is an example of the map of the legendary Central Park in New York:
A lot of maps are about the USA or New York, and other cities, territories, and locations in North America but you can also find maps from other places in the world as well. The collection is based on maps made right after the discovery of America by Europeans up to the end of the 19th century.
4. Loc.gov
Library of Congress has a huge collection of free old maps available online too! If you want, for instance, to present a lecture on civil war, you can use a map like the one below:
This is Colton's map of southern states with forts, stations, rivers, and railroads, which will present your audience with a much more plastic and authentic feel of the era as just a pure oral or written lecture without graphics. All maps are well-marked with a lot of additional info about authors, publishers, dates of publishing, scales, etc. Each page with a map has a section about rights, access, and citations.
5. Tourvideos.com
This site is a great resource of public domain maps published before 1923. If you, for instance, want to travel to one of the European countries and would like to explore a bit of local history, you'll definitely find a way of interesting use of one of these maps:
This is a map of Tuscany, a very popular part of Italy with a rich cultural, historical, and definitely culinary heritage. Maps are systematically arranged by counties and regions, so finding the right one should be no fuss. There is also a warning from the site owners - they can't guarantee Public Domain rights for every presented map, so it's still your responsibility to find the proper way of using and accrediting the ones you want to download. But for personal use, this site is definitely a gold mine.
One more warning. Due to large files, a logical consequence of high-resolution maps, you need to be patient when downloading them. Just relax and enjoy it!