In the 1890s, Thomas Ward created maps of the city of Wellington, New Zealand that are the subject of a new book by Elizabeth Cox, Mr Ward’s Map, and this article in New Zealand Geographic about both Ward and Cox’s book:

Over two and a half years, Ward walked every street in the city. He drew the outline of every single building, including garden sheds and outhouses (but spared himself the effort of documenting henhouses). Historian Elizabeth Cox thinks that Ward may have knocked on all the doors of all Wellington’s houses, too, because he recorded the number of rooms in each dwelling, the number of storeys, and the building materials used. The resulting map is huge, spanning 88 sheets of paper, each the size of a poster. […]

After Ward stopped updating the map himself, others took on the task—much less perfectly, notes Cox—leaving behind ink spills, coffee-cup rings, drips of tea, and scribbled mathematical equations. It was the city’s primary map for more than 80 years, only superseded in the 1970s.

Today, a copy of Ward’s original, plus many of its subsequent versions, lives in a set of wide, shallow drawers in the Wellington City Archives—and online, as an overlay in mapping software for anyone to use.

Ward’s maps can be seen here and here (updated version). As you can see from the sample above, they’re at a level of detail that would give Sanborn maps a run for their money. Thanks to Ken Dowling for the tip.

Mr Ward’s Map: Victorian Wellington Street by Street
by Elizabeth Cox
Massey University Press, 13 Nov 2025, NZD $90
Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop