Instructional Services Librarian
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
- Library of Congress Sanborn MapsThe Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Collection includes a searchable database of the fire insurance maps covering the entire US, with many years of maps for most cities.
San Francisco Public Library provides access to the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for California.
Remote access is provided through the Articles and Databases link under eLibrary.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for San Francisco span 1887-1950.
- Sanborn fire insurance maps are valuable historical tools for: urban specialists, social historians, architects, architectural historians, geographers, genealogists, local historians, planners, and environmentalists.
- Sanborn maps are resources to learn about the history, growth, and development of American cities, towns, and neighborhoods.
- These maps originally produced for insurance underwriters contain data that includes information such as individual building footprints, complete with construction details such as building material, number of stories, and building use.
San Francisco Planning Department
- San Francisco Planning DepartmentThe SF Planning Department site has many mapping and other resources for researching sites in the city. Reports include: property report (build date, sales price, land value, and parcel number), zoning report, historic preservation report, permitting history and Sanborn map information.
Sanborn Maps
New article on Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps! Tanvi Misra discusses how Sanborn Maps show the evolution of cities in the article The Accidental Revelation of Sanborn Maps. Read the article on the Atlantic's CItyLab blog.
Digital Sanborn Maps Key
