An Open Map Collection
The European Gaze
on India
Sixty-six foreign maps, 1519–1946, with a 1947 epilogue — and what they reveal about the eye behind the pen. A map records not only a land but who is looking, what they want, and what they cannot yet see.
01Antiquity and RenaissanceCoastline and rumour — India inherited from Ptolemy and revealed, piecemeal, by Portuguese pilots.Enter →02Baroque, Mughals and CompaniesMughal sovereignty, trading companies and the atlas market — India described, traded and published from outside.Enter →03The Survey TurnRennell, Lambton and the surveyors: India stops being chiefly reported and starts being systematically measured.Enter →04Home Ground: Bombay and the DeccanThe gaze tightens to a region — harbour, district and city, down to the street and taluka.Enter →05Administered Empire and Victorian AtlasEmpire as analysis: India counted, classified and coloured for government and the high-Victorian atlas.Enter →06The Sea and the RouteA maritime interlude — the ocean as Europe’s original and recurring approach to India.Enter →07Last FrontiersStrategic margins and imperial endings — wartime publics, surviving enclaves, partition planning and a 1947 epilogue.Enter →