Magnificent Maps

The British Library’s major summer exhibition is Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art. The show “brings together 80 of the largest, most impressive and beautiful maps ever made, from 200 AD to the present day” and explores how maps can be tools used to various ends but also invaluable witnesses to an era.

I’ll report back on this in May but in the meantime the website is amazing: it shows four of the maps, with zoom-in functionality, and features an explanatory curator’s video. If you’re in London or going to be, the exhibition opens 30 April and runs until 19 September 2010.

If you’re a map freak already, you might want to take a look at the curator’s blog.