Maps, nautical charts and atlases have been part of our collection ever since the library was founded. The maps include maps of the world, maps of one or more regions of the earth, and maps of individual countries. In the case of the atlases, we make a distinction between general world atlases, regional atlases, school atlases, historic atlases and special atlases, e.g. for languages, traffic or climate data. Astronomical maps and atlases also form part of our collection.

In some cases, the map collection was supplemented retrospectively; as a result, it contains almost all the German-language maps compiled during the 20th and 21st century with the exception of secret military maps. It therefore encompasses more than 271,000 maps (including electronic publications stored on data carriers) and 5,800 atlases. We also have a number of globes in our collection; however, they are not part of our collection mandate.

Our map collection also contains so-called non-geographical objects. This literature contains illustrations in map format, for example family trees or charts used in the classroom.

You can access this material through our catalogue. There is also a historical index catalogue that indexes the content of the collection by region.

Some of the atlases and current maps are freely accessible in our map reading room in Leipzig together with around 700 volumes of cartographic literature and reference material.