Subject Guide ~ Latin American Studies

Explore five centuries of journeys across the globe, scientific discoveries, the expansion of European colonialism, conflict over territories and trade routes, and decades-long search and rescue attempts in this multi-archive collection dedicated to the history of exploration.

This collection consists of the Confidential Print for Central and South America and the French- and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Topics covered include slavery and the slave trade, immigration, relations with indigenous peoples, wars and territorial disputes, the fall of the Brazilian monarchy, British business and financial interests, industrial development, the building of the Panama Canal, and the rise to power of populist rulers such as Perón in Argentina and Vargas in Brazil.

Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the material in this collection includes thousands of audio field recordings and interviews, educational recordings, film footage, field notebooks, slides, correspondence and ephemera from over 60 fields of study.

More than 32,000 maps and images focusing on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America.

The Library of Congress has custody of the world's largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection, some of which have been converted to digital form.

More than 15,000 digital items from the library's map collection.

More than 11,000 maps scanned by the University of Texas Libraries. Most are in the public domain.

Maps have been produced under the auspices of the United Nations since the founding of the Organization in 1946. Maps can form the principal part of a United Nations document, be ancillary to other materials, or a part of proceedings of meetings in the Organization. Maps, whether traditional digital maps or web-maps, are the main medium to present and visualize geospatial information.