North Korea Maps Available from Ball State University Libraries

Maps in the News: North Korea

Recent events have once again placed the Korean Peninsula in the world spotlight:  The GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) on the second floor of Bracken Library contains hundreds of maps of the Korean Peninsula and North and South Korea.

The GRMC has three different sets of topographic maps of the Korean Peninsula, some created by the Army Map Service.  These topographic maps are available at 1:50,000; 1:250,000; 1:500,000 scales.

The GRMC also houses a set of city plan maps of cities from North and South Korea, including Ulsan, Keijo, Masan, Pusan, Pyongyang, Chinnampo, and Najin Rashin.  Updated maps of Pyongyang, Seoul and Inchon are also available.

Numerous maps of the two countries or the combined peninsula are also available for research and learning, including the National Geographic comprehensive map The Two Koreas: Forgotten War.  The map and chart shown above (click to enlarge) depicting military and nuclear capacity and spending are inset maps included on this National Geographic map of the peninsula.

The Earth at Night map shown above is also published by National Geographic.  The GRMC created a maps lesson for middle school geography students requiring the identification of places marked on the map.  The dark area identified by #11 on the map represents North Korea in comparison to the bright white lights of South Korea and #12 Japan.  This lesson is available for teachers in the University Libraries’ Cardinal Scholar repository.

Bracken Library is a federal depository library, so the GRMC receives updated maps of Korea from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and nautical charts from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.  The map shown above comparing the size of North Korea to a region of the United States was published by the CIA.

The University Libraries’ Digital Media Repository also provides online access to a collection of CIA maps called Maps of the World.  This online collection provides digital public domain maps reflecting the most current changes and national borders and territories. The map of North Korea

The Atlas Collection on the second floor of Bracken Library also houses resources about Korea.  Several road atlases of Korea and tourist atlases of Seoul are available.  Many of these atlases are available in English and Korean.

For more information about these resources, please contact the GRMC at 765-285-1097 or email Melissa Gentry at mgentry@bsu.edu.