Stanford's map center is home to thousands of cartographic gems

Deardra Fuzzell, a cartographic technology specialist at Stanford inspects a 1742 celestial atlas in both paper and digital form at the new David Rumsey Map Center.

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Photo courtesy of Wayne Vanderkuil, Stanford Libraries

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Three generations of the Cassini family worked on this national survey of France between 1750 and 1815. This detail shows the area around Grenoble, at the foot of the Alps. End to end, its 182 sheets would be 11.8 meters high by 11.5 meters wide.

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Stanford Libraries, David Rumsey Map Center

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Geological map from a statistical atlas—the first of its kind—that accompanied the 1870 U.S. Census. Compiled by Francis Amasa Walker, the atlas is considered a landmark in cartography for its innovative maps of climactic, economic, and social variables.

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Stanford Libraries, David Rumsey Map Center

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The David Rumsey Map Collection at Stanford is officially open to the public. The extensive collection is the first of its kind on the West coast.

The largest collection of maps on the west coast is now housed at Stanford University

Some of the 150 thousand artifacts cover entire walls -- others are available at the click of a button

For more on the treasures to be found at the David Rumsey Map Center, Take Two's A Martinez spoke with G. Salim Muhammad.

He's the center's director and curator.

You can see pictures of a few of the maps on display in our slideshow up above.

To find out what else is on display at the David Rumsey Map Center, you can check out their website