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County Atlases

County atlases from the 1870s to the 1930s are available for all Iowa counties on microfilm.  Most were filmed using copies from the collections at the State Historical Society offices in Iowa City (SHSI) and Des Moines (DM). The microfilmed county atlases may be obtained in the Map Collection, then taken to the Media Services Department for viewing and copying.

Click here to search a listing of county atlases on film.  
This is a searchable database of holdings only—no images are included in the database.

In addition, the UI Map Collection staff have begun to digitize maps from selected county atlases (see http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/maps )   This ongoing digitization effort is part of the Iowa Heritage Digital Collections (IHDC) project.

The Map Collection also contains a microfiche set from the Library of Congress’ Geography and Maps Division, titled "19th Century Land Ownership Maps of Iowa." Fiche may be viewed in the Map Collection and taken to Media Services for copying.

Counties and years represented in that microfiche set are as follows:

Allamakee…..1872

Blackhawk....1887

Buchanan.......1900

Buena Vista...[1891?]

Butler.............1897

Cedar............[1863-65?]

Clay...............1896

Clinton...........1865

Crawford........1883, 1898

Delaware.......1869

Dickinson......1883

Dubuque........1900

Jackson.........1867

Jasper...........1871

Jefferson..…..1871

Keokuk...........1861

Linn................1859, 1869

Louisa............1858

Mahaska........1871, 1884, 1895

Polk................1872, 1885, 1895

Scott...............1860

Story...............1883

Wapello..........1870, 1873

Warren...........[1859?]

Woodbury......1884

Worth..............[1894]

Wright..............1885

In addition to older county atlases and land ownership records in film, fiche, and digital format, the UI Map Collection also owns newer plat books, from the 1950s and 1960s on, for all counties in Iowa.  Holdings for most plat books are in the online catalog.