Maps, Atlases and Gazetteers

• See WebLinks > Maps and gazetteers for street maps, old maps, gazetteers (dictionaries of places) and many other maps sites
• Street maps include, for example, Bing Maps, with street maps, aerial maps, 'hybrid' maps and route finder; Streetmap, with street and road atlas maps for mainland Britain (including the ability to search by telephone code); and Google Maps, with street maps, aerial maps and more
• You can see large colour maps in the Reference books online collections -

the Credo Reference 'Geography' section gives you the 'Collins world atlas gazetteer', a full world atlas and gazetteer on your desktop. Take a look too at 'Philip's world geo-factbook' for colour maps of world regions

at Oxford Reference Online, you will find maps and links at the 'Maps and illustrations' section, while at 'Names and places' you can find out about place names

• At Encyclopedia Britannica online there is a 'World atlas' with maps of countries (political and physical maps), continents (political, physical, land use, peoples, population, precipitation and vegetation maps), regions (Canada, US and Australia) and oceans and seas
• At Local and family history > Places there is a small range of digitised local maps
• Looking for information about a particular place? You can discover whether there are any notable individuals from British history associated with it by searching the Oxford dictionary of national biography by place name
• Maps, atlases and gazetteers at Bedford Borough and Central Bedfordshire libraries

Further information

• Library catalogue
• Contact us - for help to find information, from your local librarians
• 'Enquire' - a 24-hour chat enquiry service, from the national People's Network. Local librarians take part in 'Enquire' on a rota basis but it is likely that you would be answered by a librarian from another library service

Library contact details and opening times