Old Central USA Topographic Map by Bartholomew, 1922: Gulf routes, Mississippi R., Houston, Dallas, New Orleans

2026-04-25T23:46:37+01:00

Price: 0.00 - 1975.00 (36 variants)

United States - central section is John George Bartholomew’s 1922 vision of the American heartland, issued by the Edinburgh Geographical Institute as the second iteration of the landmark 1920 edition. It marks a decisive stylistic and technical shift from the earlier, Andree-influenced 1895 tradition, embracing Bartholomew’s own cartographic language of color, clarity, and analytical precision. Hypsometric tints model the land’s rise from the Gulf littoral to interior uplands, while bathymetric shadings contour the coastal shallows where trade awakened the region to the world. Shipping routes with measured distances lace the Gulf of Mexico, underscoring the map’s practical orientation toward navigation and commerce. The design is quintessentially early twentieth century—restrained, rigorous, and quietly authoritative.

Bartholomew’s color gradients render the central United States as a living topography. The low, humid arc of the Gulf Coastal Plain deepens through greens into warmer ochres and browns over the Texas Hill Country, the Ouachita and Ozark highlands, and the Cumberland uplifts. Spot heights prick the relief with numerical certainty, while river systems—Mississippi, Arkansas, Red, Trinity, Brazos, and the Colorado of Texas—trace the arteries that fed cotton, timber, and oil economies. Along the coast, bathymetric tints hint at shelves and deeps, a subtle guide to approach and passage. The Mississippi Delta’s fans and bayous are set against a backdrop of measured elevation, revealing at a glance why floodplains, bluffs, and terraces shaped settlement, agriculture, and transport.

The political portrait is equally exacting, with state boundaries for Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee delineated in clean, confident strokes that never smother the physical story beneath. A constellation of cities anchors the composition: Houston rising out of the coastal bayous; Dallas and Fort Worth astride the Trinity watershed; San Antonio and Austin stepping across the Hill Country; Memphis gripping the Mississippi’s east bank; New Orleans poised at the river’s mouth; Baton Rouge, Little Rock, and Nashville each commanding their riverine corridors. Their placement converts the page into an atlas of influence—where river bends dictate harbors, uplands host capitals, and trade routes braid interior markets with Gulf ports and onward to the Caribbean and Atlantic worlds.

John George Bartholomew, often hailed as the “Prince of Cartography,” codified a modern cartographic aesthetic that fused scientific method with painterly restraint. Under his Edinburgh Geographical Institute, hypsometric tints became an instrument of explanation rather than ornament, harmonized with precise typography, judicious linework, and carefully tabulated spot heights. This 1922 issue encapsulates that philosophy, departing from the venerable, more textural Germanic conventions associated with Andree to a cleaner, British cosmopolitan clarity. Its disciplined presentation signals the lineage that would mature into future editions of The Times Atlas, where global geography, commercial intelligence, and visual legibility coalesced into a single authoritative reference for scholars, statesmen, travelers, and traders.

The map speaks to a transformative moment in American and global commerce. In the early 1920s, oilfields expanded across Texas and Louisiana, the Mississippi remained the republic’s commercial spine, and the Panama Canal reoriented sea distances—facts legible here in the measured shipping routes radiating from Gulf ports. Distances plotted between key waypoints convert the coast from mere shoreline into a navigational matrix, while bathymetric tints intimate safe water and offshore approach. By wedding those maritime cues to an inland lattice of elevations, rivers, and borders, Bartholomew captured a region on the cusp of modernity—its landscapes, cities, and trade corridors all mapped with a precision that turns information into insight, and geography into narrative.

Cities and towns on this map

Houston, Texas

Dallas, Texas

San Antonio, Texas

Austin, Texas

Fort Worth, Texas

Memphis, Tennessee

New Orleans, Louisiana

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Little Rock, Arkansas

Nashville, Tennessee

Notable Features & Landmarks

Hypsometric Tints: Displaying elevation changes across the region.

Bathymetric Tints: Indicating water depths along the coastal areas.

Shipping Routes: Illustrated paths with marked distances.

Spot Heights: Numerical values showing specific elevations at notable points.

Borders: Clearly delineated boundaries for states.

Historical and design context

Mapmaker/Publisher: Created by John George Bartholomew in 1922, published by the Edinburgh Geographical Institute.

Historical Significance: Second issue of the 1920 edition—first to fully employ Bartholomew’s techniques—departing from Andree’s work in the 1895 edition.

Topics and Themes: Detailed political and physical illustrations combining relief, bathymetry, and shipping routes.

Design and Style: Hypsometric tints to represent elevation; vintage early 20th-century cartographic style emphasizing navigation and trade routes.

Practical Application: Focus on shipping routes and distances for early 20th-century navigation.

Publication Legacy: Precursor to future editions of The Times Atlas, continuing a lineage of cartographic excellence.

Please double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.

This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 70in (180cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

Please note: the labels on this map are hard to read if you order a map that is 16in (40cm) or smaller. The map is still very attractive, but if you would like to read the map easily, please buy a larger size.

The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) version of this map.