Atlas of historical county boundaries. Illinois
Sound scholarship declares itself on every page of these volumes, making each essential for libraries of all kinds. Each volume has prefatory and introductory material, a table of county creations, a consolidated chronology, and--the bulk of the work--individual county chronologies. A table of censuses and census outline maps add the finishing touch. It's easy to see why this 40-volume project has been supported by National Endowment for the Humanities grant money and has The Newberry Library in Chicago as its headquarters; the amount of original research from primary sources must have been staggering, and the detail is just what patrons request--month, day, and year of events whenever possible; area in square miles; and so on. Derived from the U.S. Geological Survey's State Base series (1:500,000), the maps include significant detail: cities, lakes, rivers, mountains, and, sometimes, federal land survey lines. The historical county boundaries are drawn over the current map in bold black lines. This technique provides a sharp contrast between historical and current data.The volumes in this project are intended as revised and enlarged editions of the Historical Atlas and Chronology of County Boundaries, 1788-1980 (G.K. Hall, 1984)
Map, English, 1997
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1997