Understanding the Gough Map

The Gough Map is known as one of the earliest maps to show the whole of Great Britain in a geographically recognizable form.

Map image from Linguistic Geographies website, click to enlarge

Despite much study, it is still not clear who made the map, how it was made, why it was created and when exactly it was published? Linguistic Geographies: the Gough Map of Great Britain and its Making, is a research project set up to investigate and answer these key questions.

“To this end one of the main project outcomes will be the web-resource through which the Gough Map will be made more widely accessible (it currently resides in the Bodleian Library), and through which the data and findings of this project will be made freely available.” Gough Map project website

The Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project partners are: Queen's University Belfast, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford and King's College London. The first meeting of the 15 month project took place in early April 2010 at the Bodleian Library, see Linguistic Geographies blog.

Interactive Gough Map at GEOID website.