Rare Old Topographic Map of Hidalgo, Mexico, 1922: Pachuca, Tulancingo, Tula de Allende, Moctezuma River, Mezquital Valley
Restored in our London workshop from the original 1922 map and printed to museum-grade archival standards. Full description
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Standard made-to-order configurations are included. Bespoke sizes, personalised designs and commissioned work are excluded.
Need delivery to different addresses? Contact us before ordering.The Collector’s Offer
Choose two eligible works and receive 20% off both. Choose three and the lowest-priced one is complimentary, a maximum saving of 33%.
Mix and match eligible standard maps and fine-art prints. No code is required; the offer is applied automatically at checkout.
Standard made-to-order configurations are included. Bespoke sizes, personalised designs and commissioned work are excluded.
Need delivery to different addresses? Contact us before ordering.
Restored in London • Printed and framed in the UK
Restored from the original 1922 map and printed to museum-grade archival standards. Full description
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Gift message & custom finish
If you want to add a gift message, or a finish (jigsaw, aluminium board, etc.) that is not available here, please request it in the "order note" when you check out.
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No. 13: Hidalgo is the state plate from the second edition of the Atlas Geográfico de la República Mexicana, prepared in 1922...
Continue readingNo. 13: Hidalgo is the state plate from the second edition of the Atlas Geográfico de la República Mexicana, prepared in 1922 by Mexico’s Dirección de Estudios Geográficos y Climatológicos for the Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento. The sheet marries physical and political geography with rare poise: relief is modeled through refined shading, while color tints and a meticulous symbology fix roads, railways, rivers, lakes, and jurisdictional boundaries in crisp balance. Across the composition, towns and cities are named with disciplined clarity—Pachuca, Tulancingo, Tula de Allende, Apan, Mineral de la Reforma, Tepeji del Río, Actopan, Zimapán, Progreso de Obregón, and Huejutla de Reyes among them—yielding an authoritative portrait of a state whose landscapes sweep from volcanic uplands to humid eastern foothills. It is a lucid geographic narrative, disciplined yet quietly expressive.
The map emerges from a concerted national enterprise led by Jefe Ing. Sotero Prieto and Jefe Ing. Luciano Lopez Sorcini, whose team fused field surveys, geodesy, and climatology into a rigorous, standardized atlas program. Issued under the aegis of the Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento, the work spoke to planners, educators, and engineers seeking dependable baselines for infrastructure and land management in the early postrevolutionary years. Its technical excellence is matched by printing artistry: zincographers such as Antonio Hernandez brought the plates to life with crystalline linework, clean hatching, and exact registration of color. The result is a document that is at once programmatic and historical—an official state portrait that encodes policy horizons, natural endowments, and lived geographies in a single, legible plane.
Hidalgo’s physiography is rendered with an eye for form and process. Shaded relief articulates the eastern buttresses of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the intermontane basins and high plateaus around Pachuca, and the dry, sunlit expanses of the Valle del Mezquital. Hydrology is a strong narrative thread: the courses of the Moctezuma and Tula rivers, along with attendant streams and lacustrine pockets, stitch together canyons, arroyos, and floodplains that organize settlement and cultivation. Ridge lines and saddles, gently darkened, reveal the logic of passes and watersheds, while the broken uplands near Zimapán and the descending, greener corridors toward Huejutla de Reyes hint at the state’s climatic gradients. The visual rhetoric is scientific, yet it communicates the drama of terrain with unmistakable immediacy.
Human networks are traced with equal discipline. Roads and railroads connect mining districts, market towns, and agricultural valleys in a skeleton of modernity laid across much older routes. From Pachuca, lines radiate toward Mineral districts and the central plateau; trunk corridors knit Tulancingo, Apan, Actopan, and Tula de Allende to Tepeji del Río and beyond, reflecting flows of ore, grain, and maguey from the celebrated plains of Apan. Stations, junctions, and river crossings are placed with the deliberation of an engineer’s notebook, while municipal and district boundaries are stepped and tinted to clarify governance. A careful typographic hierarchy distinguishes cities from rancherías and haciendas, ensuring the reader can see, at a glance, how landscape, economy, and authority interlock.
As design, the sheet is a masterclass in early twentieth-century Mexican official cartography: restrained color, scrupulous line, and shaded relief that imparts a convincing third dimension without crowding the page. As evidence, it distills the atlas’s dual mandate—technical precision for the state and a historical mirror for the nation—into a single state study that rewards close reading. Historians of rail, agrarian reform, and mining will find coordinates and corridors that anchor inquiry; cultural geographers will find narratives embedded in naming and settlement patterns. For the discerning collector, No. 13: Hidalgo stands at the confluence of science and craft, a lucid, enduring testament to how Mexico mapped itself on the cusp of modernity.
Cities and towns on this map
- Pachuca
- Tulancingo
- Tula de Allende
- Apan
- Mineral de la Reforma
- Tepeji del Río
- Actopan
- Zimapán
- Progreso de Obregón
- Huejutla de Reyes
Notable Features & Landmarks
- Roads and railroads connecting various human settlements.
- Clearly marked political boundaries and county lines.
- Major rivers and lakes indicated on the map.
- Topographical shading illustrating elevation changes across the landscape.
- Labels for towns and cities, with information on their locations.
Historical and design context
- No. 13: Hidalgo (state plate from the Atlas Geográfico de la República Mexicana).
- Created in 1922 by the Dirección de Estudios Geográficos y Climatológicos as part of the atlas’s second edition (1919–1921).
- Published by the Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento and the Dirección de Estudios Geográficos y Climatológicos, overseen by Jefe Ing. Sotero Prieto and Jefe Ing. Luciano Lopez Sorcini.
- Zincographic contributions by Antonio Hernandez; the atlas serves as both a technical and a historical document.
- Covers Hidalgo state, Mexico.
- Detailed color map emphasizing both physical and political geography.
- Reflects early 20th-century Mexican cartographic tradition; valued by historians and collectors for its depiction of landscape and cultural narratives.
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 70in (180cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) 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.
No. 13: Hidalgo is the state plate from the second edition of the Atlas Geográfico de la República Mexicana, prepared in 1922 by Mexico’s Dirección de Estudios Geográficos y Climatológicos for the Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento. The sheet marries physical and political geography with rare poise: relief is modeled through refined shading, while color tints and a meticulous symbology fix roads, railways, rivers, lakes, and jurisdictional boundaries in crisp balance. Across the composition, towns and cities are named with disciplined clarity—Pachuca, Tulancingo, Tula de Allende, Apan, Mineral de la Reforma, Tepeji del Río, Actopan, Zimapán, Progreso de Obregón, and Huejutla de Reyes among them—yielding an authoritative portrait of a state whose landscapes sweep from volcanic uplands to humid eastern foothills. It is a lucid geographic narrative, disciplined yet quietly expressive.
The map emerges from a concerted national enterprise led by Jefe Ing. Sotero Prieto and Jefe Ing. Luciano Lopez Sorcini, whose team fused field surveys, geodesy, and climatology into a rigorous, standardized atlas program. Issued under the aegis of the Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento, the work spoke to planners, educators, and engineers seeking dependable baselines for infrastructure and land management in the early postrevolutionary years. Its technical excellence is matched by printing artistry: zincographers such as Antonio Hernandez brought the plates to life with crystalline linework, clean hatching, and exact registration of color. The result is a document that is at once programmatic and historical—an official state portrait that encodes policy horizons, natural endowments, and lived geographies in a single, legible plane.
Hidalgo’s physiography is rendered with an eye for form and process. Shaded relief articulates the eastern buttresses of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the intermontane basins and high plateaus around Pachuca, and the dry, sunlit expanses of the Valle del Mezquital. Hydrology is a strong narrative thread: the courses of the Moctezuma and Tula rivers, along with attendant streams and lacustrine pockets, stitch together canyons, arroyos, and floodplains that organize settlement and cultivation. Ridge lines and saddles, gently darkened, reveal the logic of passes and watersheds, while the broken uplands near Zimapán and the descending, greener corridors toward Huejutla de Reyes hint at the state’s climatic gradients. The visual rhetoric is scientific, yet it communicates the drama of terrain with unmistakable immediacy.
Human networks are traced with equal discipline. Roads and railroads connect mining districts, market towns, and agricultural valleys in a skeleton of modernity laid across much older routes. From Pachuca, lines radiate toward Mineral districts and the central plateau; trunk corridors knit Tulancingo, Apan, Actopan, and Tula de Allende to Tepeji del Río and beyond, reflecting flows of ore, grain, and maguey from the celebrated plains of Apan. Stations, junctions, and river crossings are placed with the deliberation of an engineer’s notebook, while municipal and district boundaries are stepped and tinted to clarify governance. A careful typographic hierarchy distinguishes cities from rancherías and haciendas, ensuring the reader can see, at a glance, how landscape, economy, and authority interlock.
As design, the sheet is a masterclass in early twentieth-century Mexican official cartography: restrained color, scrupulous line, and shaded relief that imparts a convincing third dimension without crowding the page. As evidence, it distills the atlas’s dual mandate—technical precision for the state and a historical mirror for the nation—into a single state study that rewards close reading. Historians of rail, agrarian reform, and mining will find coordinates and corridors that anchor inquiry; cultural geographers will find narratives embedded in naming and settlement patterns. For the discerning collector, No. 13: Hidalgo stands at the confluence of science and craft, a lucid, enduring testament to how Mexico mapped itself on the cusp of modernity.
Cities and towns on this map
- Pachuca
- Tulancingo
- Tula de Allende
- Apan
- Mineral de la Reforma
- Tepeji del Río
- Actopan
- Zimapán
- Progreso de Obregón
- Huejutla de Reyes
Notable Features & Landmarks
- Roads and railroads connecting various human settlements.
- Clearly marked political boundaries and county lines.
- Major rivers and lakes indicated on the map.
- Topographical shading illustrating elevation changes across the landscape.
- Labels for towns and cities, with information on their locations.
Historical and design context
- No. 13: Hidalgo (state plate from the Atlas Geográfico de la República Mexicana).
- Created in 1922 by the Dirección de Estudios Geográficos y Climatológicos as part of the atlas’s second edition (1919–1921).
- Published by the Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento and the Dirección de Estudios Geográficos y Climatológicos, overseen by Jefe Ing. Sotero Prieto and Jefe Ing. Luciano Lopez Sorcini.
- Zincographic contributions by Antonio Hernandez; the atlas serves as both a technical and a historical document.
- Covers Hidalgo state, Mexico.
- Detailed color map emphasizing both physical and political geography.
- Reflects early 20th-century Mexican cartographic tradition; valued by historians and collectors for its depiction of landscape and cultural narratives.
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 70in (180cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) 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.
Many of our maps and art prints are chosen as thoughtful gifts for homes, offices, studies and meaningful places.
Choose a framed option for the easiest ready-to-hang gift, or choose an unframed print if the recipient may prefer to select their own frame.
We make orders locally in 24 countries around the world, so gifts can often be produced close to the recipient. This helps them arrive faster, travel more safely, and avoid customs or import duty surprises.
- We can deliver directly to the recipient
- Framed pieces arrive ready to hang
- Unframed prints are carefully packed in a strong protective tube
- Almost every order is made locally, for faster, safer gifting
- 90-day returns give the recipient time to decide
If you are not sure what to choose, please contact us. We can help you pick the right map, size, finish or delivery option.
Most orders are made locally and delivered in around 2–3 working days, depending on the product, size and destination.
We print and frame maps and artwork in 24 countries around the world, so your order is usually made close to you or your recipient. That means faster delivery, less time in transit, and no customs or import duty surprises.
Personalised and customised pieces usually take an extra 1–2 working days, because we prepare your design and send it to you for approval before printing.
Very large framed orders can take a little longer, as they need extra care in production and delivery.
Every order is carefully packaged: unframed prints are sent in a strong protective tube, while framed pieces are securely packed with protective materials around the frame.
If you need your order by a particular date, please contact us before ordering. We’ll check the best production route and delivery option for your location.
Express delivery is available at checkout for most countries. Next-day delivery is available in the UK, US, Singapore and the UAE.
Your order is covered by our 90-day returns policy and 10-year guarantee.
Our standard frame is a gallery-style black ash hardwood frame, with a simple, modern look. It is approximately 20mm (0.8in) wide. You can also view some lovely customer photos of framed maps and art.
We use super-clear acrylic glazing, also known as Perspex or Acrylite, instead of traditional glass. It is lighter, safer, and has lower reflectivity, giving the artwork a clearer, cleaner appearance.
Six standard frame colours are available at no extra cost: black, dark brown, dark grey, oak, white, and antique gold. Custom framing and mounting/matting is also available for customers looking for something more specific.
Most maps, art prints, and illustrations are also available as a framed canvas. We use matte cotton canvas, stretch it over a sustainably sourced wooden box frame, and then float the piece within a wooden outer frame. The finished result is beautifully presented, with no glazing between you and the artwork.
All frames are supplied ready to hang, with either string or brackets fitted to the back. Very large frames will include heavy-duty hanging plates and/or a mounting baton. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
We can also supply old maps and artwork on canvas, foam board, cotton rag, and other materials.
If you would prefer to frame your map or artwork yourself, please read our size guide before ordering.
We work with interior designers, hospitality businesses, property professionals, offices and corporate buyers on individual pieces and larger coordinated projects.
This map can be adapted for a particular wall, room or project, and our workshop can help coordinate the dimensions, material and framing before production.
- Exact, oversized and made-to-measure dimensions
- Custom framing, mounting and alternative materials
- Coordinated pieces for several rooms or locations
- Map personalisation, to mark important locations or add extra details
- Map and framing guidance from our workshop
- Local production for projects around the world
Every Unique Maps piece begins with an authentic cartographic source or an original design from our London studio.
For our historic maps, we source rare originals from libraries, archives, auction houses and private collections around the world. We carefully restore each map for print—repairing age-related damage, balancing colour and improving clarity while preserving its original detail, texture and character.
Once restored, the map is prepared for your chosen size and finish. Your piece is then printed and, where selected, framed close to its delivery destination.
Our map prints use acid-free 200gsm archival matte paper and fade-resistant pigment inks, creating a rich, non-glossy finish designed to last. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
Canvas, cotton-rag and other specialist presentations are also available. Learn more about our materials and finishes.
Personalising your map
You can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. For personalised designs, we send a proof before printing and you can request changes before approval.
For more complex bespoke commissions, contact our design team.
Original or Aged
Choose Original for true-to-source colour, or Aged for a warmer, richer antique character created with our specialist ageing process. See examples of our Aged maps.
We’ve been restoring and producing maps and art prints since 1984, and we stand behind every piece.
Every order is covered by our 10-year guarantee and damage-free delivery guarantee. If your piece arrives damaged, we’ll replace or remake it free of charge. If anything else isn’t right, contact our workshop team and we’ll put it right promptly.
See our returns and refund policy for full details.
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