The Underground Map

The Underground Map is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying within the M25.

Back street in Westminster
Credit: Leonardo.ai

In a series of maps from the 1750s until the 1950s, you can see how London grew from a city which only reached as far as Park Lane into the post-war megapolis we know today.

The aim of the project is to find the location every street in London, whether past or present. You are able to see each street on a present day map and also spot its location on older maps.

There's a control which looks like a 'pile of paper' at the top right of the map above. You can use it to see how an area has changed on a series of historic maps.

This website does not sell maps. Instead it offers a subscription service via Substack using which you can download unlimited maps.

Find out how to use the service by clicking ABOUT above and finding the section which says How to use the mapping service.

The time in London is 00:02

Unless otherwise given an attribution, images and text on this website are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.
If given an attribution or citation, any reuse of material must credit the original source under their terms.

If there is no attribution or copyright, you are free:

to share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to remix - to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

attribution - You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
share alike - If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

CC-BY-SA-2.0 truetrue

1900 and 1950 mapping is reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence.