Published in 2000 from mapping compiled in 1999, “Westport” presents the Vergennes, Vermont, and Lake Champlain border country with the disciplined precision of a late twentieth-century United States Geological Survey topographical sheet. At 1:25,000 scale, it offers an intimate view of a landscape where settlement, water, woodland, and upland relief are all carefully balanced. Vergennes, famously the smallest city in Vermont, anchors the eastern portion of the scene, while Lake Champlain opens westward as both natural boundary and historic corridor. The map’s title evokes the broader Champlain shorelands, linking Vermont’s towns with the New York side of the lake and emphasizing a region long shaped by cross-water movement, agriculture, and strategic geography.

The United States Geological Survey brought more than a century of institutional expertise to maps such as this, combining field observation, aerial interpretation, standardized symbols, and environmental science into a coherent national cartographic language. Founded in 1879, the USGS became essential to American land management, mineral assessment, water study, and public planning, and its topographic maps remain among the most recognizable achievements of federal mapping. This sheet reflects that tradition: roads, trails, contours, streams, wooded areas, wetlands, and settlement patterns are rendered with clarity rather than ornament. Its beauty lies in utility—an exacting visual grammar that allows the viewer to read terrain, infrastructure, and habitation as interconnected elements of a living landscape.

The topography around Vergennes is especially well suited to this style of mapping. Contour lines trace the rolling and hilly ground characteristic of western Vermont, showing how elevations rise away from Lake Champlain and how roads and settlements adapt to the land’s folds. Ferrisburgh, Panton, Addison, Waltham, Monkton, and Bristol appear within a wider rural pattern of farms, hamlets, wooded tracts, and waterways. The map makes visible the subtle structure of the countryside: ridges, drainage lines, small valleys, and open fields all emerge through the disciplined spacing of contour and symbol. For anyone interested in Vermont’s physical geography, it is a compact portrait of terrain shaped by glacial history and long agricultural use.

Lake Champlain is the great geographical presence on the sheet, its shoreline and bays giving rhythm to the map’s western edge. North West Bay, Chimney Point, and the neighboring waters point to a region where travel, trade, recreation, and military history have long converged. The lake served Indigenous communities, colonial powers, Revolutionary-era forces, commercial vessels, and modern travelers alike, forming a natural highway between the Hudson Valley, Canada, Vermont, and New York. Around its margins, the map records ferry approaches, roads, shore settlements, and low-lying lands that reveal the continuing importance of the water. The contrast between the open lake and the textured Vermont interior gives the sheet much of its visual drama.

As a document of 1999 conditions, the map also captures a moment in the modern evolution of the Champlain Valley. Highways, minor roads, trails, village centers, residential areas, parks, forested land, and defined water bodies together form a careful record of land use at the turn of the millennium. Since then, infrastructure, housing, conservation priorities, and recreational patterns may have shifted, making this map valuable as a historical benchmark as well as a geographical guide. Its clear color palette distinguishes water, landforms, urban areas, and vegetation with understated elegance, while the contouring preserves the tactile sense of the ground itself. “Westport” is both practical cartography and a richly layered portrait of a borderland landscape.

Cities, towns and places on this map

• Vergennes
• Lake Champlain
• North West Bay
• Ferrisburgh
• Panton
• Bristol
• Chimney Point
• Shelburne
• Addison
• Monkton
• Waltham
• Various small villages and settlements noted in the area
• Roads, trails, and minor highways depicted on the map
• Contours indicating elevation levels
• Water bodies with defined outlines
• Forested areas and parks as indicated in the map's symbols

Historical context & cartographic details

• Produced by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
• Created in 1999 and published in 2000.
• Historical 1:25,000 topographical map showing Vergennes, Vermont, and the surrounding area.
• Covers areas around Lake Champlain and the Vermont–New York border region.
• Vergennes is known as the smallest city in Vermont.
• Lake Champlain is a significant body of water for transportation and recreation.
• Uses a clear color palette to distinguish landform elevations, water bodies, and urban areas.
• Follows conventional topographical map design, with contour lines representing elevation changes.
• Depicts varied elevations and hilly terrain around Vergennes.
• Illustrates land use and geographical features that may have changed since publication, including infrastructure and residential development.

Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.

Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

The model in the listing images is holding the 36x24in (90x60cm) version of this map.

Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.

Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.

With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.