address: Prins Willem Alexanderhof 20, 2595 BE Den Haag
Opening hours: Monday-Friday 13.30-17.00 h.; other hours and 1st saturday of the month on appointment
Telephone: 070-3315468
Telefax: 070-3315499
Chief Curator: R.M. Haubourdain

History
In principle the Department of Maps and Drawings manages the maps and drawings of the central government offices and the governmental and provincial institutions in the province of Zuid-Holland, which are older than 50 years. Except for some special collections and acquisitions the largest part of the map- collection belongs to the archives of government offices, manors, families, business concerns, persons etc. Maps have been used in administrative processes since the Middle Ages. The use of maps, also because of improved surveying methods in the beginning of the 16th century, has increased ever since. Important tasks were and still are e.g. defence, landownership, traffic and water-control, building-administration, government of overseas territories and navigation. Drawn records distinguish themselves from written records in size and expressions, but not in their way of filing. That is why the filing of the maparchives is parallelous with the filing of the written archives, managed respectively by the State Archives for Central Government Archives up to 1795, the State Archives for Central Government Archives after 1795 and the State Archives in the province of Zuid-Holland.

Contents
Geographically the collection covers the whole world. Seen the tasks in the past, however, the emphasis is on the Netherlands and former Dutch overseas territories.
Besides atlases, mapbooks and folders with maps the collection consists of ca. 250,000 single sheets. Half of these are printed, the other half is manuscript. These numbers do not show the total size of the collection; many folded maps are contained within the written archives, especially in the 19th century 'process-archives'.

Reproduction
Maps can not be xerox-copied.
The maproom has a reader-printer on which one can make "working-copies" in sizes A-4 and A-3. However this is conditional on micro-fiches of the original map being available. They possess at the moment some 80,000 images on micro-fiche, ca. 45,000 maps and ca. 35,000 technical drawings; the number of fiches grows annually with some 5,000 numbers).
The General State Archives also has a photographical Department. After payment, delivery of photographical reproductions and/or negatives takes some three weeks.
The State Archives Service supplies b/w photographs in fixed sizes, the largest being 50 x 60 cm. If reproductions in virtual sizes are requested one is directed to a private business which supplies enlargements or contacts on polyester film with dimensional stability or document paper, on the basis of a negative supplied by the General States Archives.

Consultation and access
If one wants to use the collection the main access is gotten through the yearly updated "Overview of archives and collections in the Department of Maps and Drawings". Some knowledge of the history of state- institutions can be helpful to you (see chapter 4). The overview also contains a personal and subject- index.
Separate map-archives and -collections are accessed with inventories, catalogues and indexes. It is recommendable with almost any historical research to use modern and old topographical and/or hydrographical maps. This simplifies matters of orientation and interpretation. Because of this there is a geographical index and sheet- and map-indexes for many map(serie)s.
The maproom disposes also over a large microfiche/film-archive, which includes a.o. the maps, plans, views and drawings from Dutch colonial archives 1583-1950 (already more than 21,000 images) and also ca. 30,000 images of technical drawings from the archives of the Government Building Service.

Inventories
1. Lijst van gedrukte kaarten, voorhanden in het archief der genie van het Ministerie van Oorlog/ opg. naar de registers van het archief door den adjunct-commies P.I.M. Meyboom. - 's-Gravenhage : [S.n.], 1857. - 436 p.
2. Inventaris der verzameling kaarten berustende in het Rijks archief / door P.A. Leupe. - 's-Gravenhage : Nijhoff, 1867. - 309 p. - Ie gedeelte
3. Catalogus van het kaarten-archief der afdeeling Waterstaat van het Departement van Binnenlandsche Zaken / door P.L. Putters. - 's-Gravenhage: [S.n.], 1868. - 276 p.
4. Inventaris der verzameling kaarten berustende in het Rijks-archief / door J.H. Hingman. - 's-Gravenhage : Nijhoff, 1871. - 428 p. - IIe gedeelte.
5. Catalogus der verzameling van kaarten van het ministerie van Marine / door P.A. Leupe. - 's-Gravenhage : [S.n.], 1872. - 1284 p.
6. Lijst van voorhanden kaarten en instrumenten. - 's-Gravenhage: Departement van Oorlog, 1881. - 253 p.
7. Catalogus van de boeken en kaarten uitmakende de bibliotheek van het Departement van Kolonie . - 's-Gravenhage : [S.n.], 1898. - 1000 p. - With 7 supplemts for the period 1903-1930
8. Inventaris der verzameling van kaarten berustende in het Algemeen Rijksarchief / door S.P. l'Honore Naber. - 's-Gravenhage : Nijhoff, 1914. - 149 p. - Eerste supplement.
9. Inventaris der verzameling kaarten berustende in het Algemeen Rijksarchief zijnde het eerste en tweede supplement op de collectie Hingman / bewerkt door A.J.H. Rozemond. - [S.l.] : [S.n.], 1969. - [ca. 170 p.]
10. Inventaris van Domeinkaarten afkomstig van het Ministerie van Financien 1813-1935 / K. Zandvliet. - Den Haag: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 1979. - 383 p.
11. Inventaris van archivalia afkomstig van H.A. Henrici, belast met de kartering en exploratie van Borneo 1823-1838 / Elly Glas. - 's-Gravenhage : ARA Kaartenafdeling, 1981. - (I - IX), 15 p.
12. Catalogus van kaarten 1570-c.1890 verzameld door E.H. Bergsma aanwezig in het ARA / E.J.M. Glas. 's-Gravenhage : ARA Kaartenafdeling, 1982. - 155 p.
13. Inventaris van kaarten, tekeningen en modellen van de waterbouwkundige ingenieurs J. Blanken Jz.(1755-1838), A.Blanken Jz.(1767-1824) en J. van Lakerveld Blanken (1793-1885) 1784-1838 / door R.M. Haubourdin. - 's-Gravenhage : ARA Kaartenafdeling, 1984. - 178 p.
14. Inventaris van het kaarten, tekeningen- en fotoarchief van de Rubber Cultuur Maatschappij Amsterdam (RCMA) 1908-1975 / door R.Th.M. Guleij. - 's-Gravenhage : Algemeen Rijksarchief, Afdeling Kaarten en Tekeningen, 1987. - (Inventarisreeks / Algemeen Rijksarchief, Afdeling Kaarten en Tekeningen; no. 1). - 88 p.
15. Catalogus van een verzameling atlassen, kaarten, tekeningen, prenten en foto's van het Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs (KIVI), uit de periode 1606-1975, aangekocht door het Algemeen Rijksarchief in 1976-1977 / R.M. Haubourdin. - 's-Gravenhage : Afdeling Kaarten en Tekeningen van het Algemeen Rijksarchief, 1991. - (Inventarisreeks / Algemeen Rijksarchief, Afdeling Kaarten en Tekeningen; nr. 2). - 151 p.
16. Inventaris van het tekeningenarchief van de Rijksgebouwendienst en rechtsvoorgangers over de periode 1824-1945 / door J. Faber. - 's-Gravenhage : Algemeen Rijksarchief, Afdeling Kaarten en Tekeningen, 1992. - (Inventarisreeks / Algemeen Rijksarchief, Afdeling Kaarten en Tekeningen; nr. 3). - 350 p.
17. De archieven van de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie = The archives of the Dutch East India Company : (1602-1795) : Algemeen Rijskarchief, Eerste Afdeling / eindred. R. Raben. - Den Haag, SDU, 1992. - 555 p.

Microfiche-series
1. Images of East and West: maps, plans, views and drawings from Dutch colonial archives, 1583- 1950.
Part I: the early period, c. 1583-1814 [1840]. - Ca. 9,000 images on 1519 microfiches. - Lisse : MMF Publications, 1992.
2. Public architecture in the Netherlands, 1842-1945. - 36,414 images on 6,069 microfiches. - Lisse : MMF Publication, 1992.

Atlantes Neerlandici
The numbers relate to the "List of Dutch atlases and (partial) facsimiles thereof", primarily based on C. Koeman's Atlantes Neerlandici.

Atlantes Neerlandici <1880
001800
001900
002700
003900
004900
007400
007600
009600
010000
010100
010200
010300
010400
010500
010600
010700
010800
010900
011000
016900
018000
018100
018200
018900
019000
019100
019200
019300
025000
028300
028800
028900
029300
029500
030200
030400A8
033200
033300
034100
034900
035200
035300
038800
038900
039000
039100
039200
039900
041400
041600
046400
048500
049300
049600
050200
050300
053100
054000
055800
055900
063400
067000
067400
070300
070600
073300
077100
080400
084400
085000
086400
086500
087600
088400
091300
091600
094600
094800
097100
099000
099100
099200
099300
100100
100200
102600
102900
103300
108600C1
108700
109700
110400
111000
111100
111300
111800
111900
112000
114500
117700
126700
131900
132000
133100
133200
133300
133500
133600
133700
133800
135100
143600
145800
146000
146200
146300
147700
148100
149300
151700
157600
158000
158100
158600
158800
159000
159400
160000
160900
161000
162200
162700
164100
167000
167700
167800
168500
171300
171400
175300
175500