Every so often, the night’s sky will give way to something unfamiliar. A light that glows differently from its neighboring stars, or an object that moves unlike any airplane you’ve seen before.

The U.S. Coast Survey map calculated the number of slaves in each county in the United States in 1860. Library of Congress In September of 1861, the U.S. Coast Survey published a large map, ...

In the aftermath of the Great Depression, the U.S. government set out to evaluate the riskiness of mortgages — and left behind a stunning portrait of the racism and discrimination that has shaped ...

Editor's note: This story, originally published in 2014, was updated on May 5, 2021 with links to the latest version of Aaron Carapella's map. Finding an address on a map can be taken for granted in ...

Most of the time, The New York Times asks you to read something. Today we are inviting you, simply, to look. On this page you will find maps showing almost every building in the United States. Why did ...

The Vault is Slate’s history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here. This map prefaced a 1918 book by ...