Georgia in 1834 - Milledgeville, Savannah, Macon

David Hugh Burr published this striking full-color map of Georgia in New York in 1834, part of the Universal Atlas that established him as one of the most celebrated names in American cartographic history. Burr trained as a surveyor under Simeon DeWitt before compiling the second state atlas ever issued in the United States, and by the 1830s he was serving as official topographer for the United States Post Office, a role that gave his large-format state maps access to survey data most contemporary publishers lacked. Widely considered the most elegant American commercially published atlas of its time, Burr's work is distinguished by its rich wash coloring and refined engraving, both fully on display in this Georgia sheet, and Burr would go on to transfer ownership of the atlas's plates to Greenleaf around 1840.

The map records Georgia's counties, towns, roads, and river systems in careful detail, capturing a state whose population and agricultural economy were expanding rapidly westward from the original coastal settlements. Milledgeville anchors the state's political life as capital, Savannah remains the principal Atlantic port through which Georgia's growing cotton crop reached international markets, and Macon, established in 1823 along the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, marks the state's newer and fast-growing interior trading center. The map's fine coloring and engraving reflect Burr's characteristic craftsmanship, rendering Georgia's expanding county grid with a clarity that made his atlas the benchmark other American publishers of the era worked to match.

This map is a fitting gift for a family with Georgia roots, for a transplant now settled in Macon or Savannah, or for a collector of Burr's celebrated Universal Atlas. It is offered unframed in a range of sizes.