Types of maps and how they are used:

Block 

• Maps divided into city blocks, bounded by roads and streets.

Cadastral

• Shows the size and boundaries of properties, topographical features, roads and railways.
• May provide property descriptions and land tenure.

Electoral Boundary / Political

• Display electoral divisions and boundaries.

Estate / Real Estate

• Created by real estate firms.
• Provide information about land subdivisions, auction dates, surveyors, and who sold the land.
• Useful for investigating the history of urban land areas. 

Flood 

• Depict flood levels and probable inundation areas at various actual and projected flood heights.
• NOTE: all flood maps included in the Picture Ipswich collection are of an historical nature only.

Mining 

• Depict locations of mines.
• NOTE: Any mining maps on Picture Ipswich are historical in nature only.  There is no guarantee of their continued accuracy. 

Orthophoto

• Displays traditional map contours over an aerial photograph base.

Parish & County

• Counties were the administrative divisions, used as part of unique property descriptions.  Counties were around 40 square miles in size and were made up of multiple parishes.
• Parishes were formed when counties were subdivided into smaller administrative areas, of around 25 square miles in size.  Parish names were part of the property identifier in the original property description system.
• Arranged by the name of the parish and county. 
• Details include the names of land holders, selection numbers for agricultural farms, grazing homesteads, auction purchase freehold, miners' homestead leases, soldier settlements, and pastoral holdings. 
• Parish maps have a scale of forty chains to an inch.

Street / Road

• One of the most used map forms, depicting roads, streets, highways, and the location of significant sites, such as airports, hospitals, schools, parks.

Topographical

• Show detailed elevation with contour lines used to map landscapes.  Contour lines are spaced at regular intervals to show elevation changes (i.e. when the lines are close together, the terrain will be steep).
• Features depicted include reliefs, hydrography, vegetation, and cultural.

Accessing Maps

• Department of Resources: Open Data Portal
• Purchase copies held by Department of Resources through Titles Queensland (ask of a copy of the original colour scan, otherwise they will provide a black & white copy)
• Queensland Globe (location based maps)
• QImagery (aerial photography, earliest of Ipswich is 1944)
• QTopo (topographic maps)
• GeoResGlobe (mining and exploration data, including undermining reports)
• GSQ Open Data Portal (qeoscience datasets, Department of Mines annual reports, historical mine maps)
• Museum of Lands, Mapping & Surveying 
• Queensland State Archives
• State Library of Queensland
• Brisbane City Archives
• National Library of Australia
• Ipswich Libraries (to view our limited collection of maps, contact the Library Digital Archivist to arrange an appointment)