Titled “Bath, Maine,” this United States Geological Survey topographical map was created in 1957 and issued with a 1963 imprint, preserving a mid-century portrait of Maine’s lower Kennebec region. At a scale of 1:62,500, it encompasses Bath, Brunswick, Merrymeeting Bay, and the deeply indented coastal landscape where rivers, tidal creeks, islands, roads, and railways meet. The USGS’s familiar visual language gives the map its disciplined elegance: blue waterways, black cultural features, green wooded areas, and brown contour lines that reveal the rise and fall of the land. It is both a scientific document and a historical window, showing how settlement, industry, transport, and terrain shaped this part of coastal Maine.

The mapmaker, the United States Geological Survey, was central to the systematic mapping of the American landscape in the twentieth century. Its topographic quadrangles were designed not merely for navigation, but for understanding terrain, resources, infrastructure, and settlement patterns with standardized precision. In this map, that institutional clarity is evident in the careful rendering of hills, valleys, wetlands, shorelines, rail corridors, and roads. The brown contour lines are especially expressive, turning an apparently gentle coastal region into a legible relief model of ridges, lowlands, and river terraces. The result is a map that combines technical authority with quiet visual refinement, characteristic of USGS cartography at its most useful and enduring.

Bath, prominently placed along the Kennebec River, brings to the map a powerful maritime identity. Long known as the “City of Ships,” Bath’s shipbuilding heritage is inseparable from the riverfront geography shown here, where deep water access and sheltered reaches encouraged centuries of marine industry. Nearby Brunswick appears as another focal point, notable for Bowdoin College and for its position amid roads, railways, and waterways connecting the interior to the coast. Smaller places such as Winnegance, Pejepscot, Thorne Head, and Woodward Point add texture to the mapped landscape, suggesting a region of villages, peninsulas, working waterfronts, wooded uplands, and agricultural clearings woven together by mid-century infrastructure.

Water dominates the character of the sheet. The Kennebec River flows southward toward the coast, while Merrymeeting Bay forms a remarkable inland confluence where major waterways broaden into tidal flats and channels. The New Meadows River, Little River, Wolf Creek, Fish Creek, and other streams articulate the terrain in fine detail, carving through lowlands and feeding the bays and estuaries that define the region. To the south and east, Casco Bay, Harpswell Neck, Great Island, Bailey Island, and Prout’s Neck evoke Maine’s island-studded shoreline, with its coves, narrows, and maritime routes. The map captures a landscape where freshwater, tidewater, and oceanic influence constantly overlap.

As a mid-twentieth-century record, the map is rich in evidence of changing land use and regional development. Roads and railways trace the practical geography of movement between Bath, Brunswick, coastal settlements, and inland communities, while the distribution of woods, open land, waterways, and built-up areas suggests the balance between rural Maine and emerging modern infrastructure. Elevations such as Heskin Hill and the subtle uplands around the bays are rendered through precise contours, reminding the viewer that even modest terrain shaped routes, settlements, and viewsheds. Today, the map offers more than geographical information: it preserves a layered historical image of a coastal Maine landscape poised between traditional maritime life and postwar transformation.

Cities, towns and places on this map

• Bath
• Brunswick
• Merrymeeting Bay
• Winnegance
• Casco Bay
• New Meadows River
• Kennebec River
• Sebasticook River
• Wolf Creek
• Fish Creek
• Little River
• Heskin Hill
• Prout's Neck
• Harpswell Neck
• Thorne Head
• Bailey Island
• Woodward Point
• Great Island
• Pejepscot
• Merrymeeting Lake
• Various roads and railways in the surrounding areas
• Landmarks such as parks and forests

Historical context & cartographic details

• Produced by the US Geological Survey.
• Created in 1957 and published with a 1963 imprint.
• Historical topographical map at a scale of 1:62,500.
• Shows Bath, Brunswick, and the surrounding area in Maine.
• Bath is known for its shipbuilding history.
• Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College.
• Uses a standard USGS layout with clear color differentiation for land and water features.
• Brown contour lines indicate elevation.
• Illustrates varied terrain, including hills, valleys, rivers, and lakes.
• Provides information on elevation and landscape features.
• Represents a mid-20th century snapshot of geography, land use, and infrastructure in the Bath and Brunswick area.

Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.

Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) version of this map.

Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.

Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.

With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.