Stanford’s Library Map of the World (1879) by Stanfords

1879 Stanford’s World Map of Winds and Ocean Currents

Before steam took over the long ocean runs, wind decided the route. This 1879 world map, published in London by Edward Stanford, lays out the belts of trade winds, the zones of calms, and the monsoon regions that shaped the passages sailed by the Cutty Sark and the rest of the tea clippers. The political picture is just as telling: much of Africa is still uncolonized, and Europe’s borders look nothing like today’s.

The soft pastel colouring separates countries, with stronger tints along the borders. Place names are unusually dense for a map of this era.

• Ocean currents, principal Ocean Mail routes annotated with distances, and submarine telegraph cables
• Mountain ranges rendered in hachures
• Two polar insets, with much of the Antarctic coastline still unmapped
• Eastern Siberia with Alaska, plus New Zealand and the South Pacific, repeated on both edges of the sheet
• Mercator projection, latitude and longitude at 10 degree intervals
• Time difference from the Greenwich Meridian and a calendar of the sun’s progress within the Tropics

Map Shop prints this reproduction from a high-resolution scan of the Edward Stanford Cartographic Collection archive. Finishing runs from plain paper to laminated with black or walnut rails, foam core mounting, or framing for a study, library, or yacht club wall.