Published in 1944 from survey work completed in 1939, the US Geological Survey’s “Memphis” quadrangle captures the city at a pivotal moment, poised between river-port heritage and modern metropolitan expansion. Drawn at the authoritative 1:62,500 scale, it presents Memphis not as a simplified city plan but as a fully realized landscape: streets, rail lines, drainage, contours, industrial edges, wooded tracts, and riverine lowlands all carefully interwoven. The Mississippi River dominates the western margin, anchoring the map both geographically and historically, while the urban grid of Downtown and Midtown spreads eastward across the higher ground. This is Memphis before the full force of postwar suburbanization, a city still visibly shaped by railroads, levees, ferries, farms, parks, and the powerful commercial gravity of the river.

The US Geological Survey brought to this map the precision and visual discipline that made its mid-twentieth-century quadrangles indispensable tools for engineers, planners, soldiers, travelers, and scholars. Founded in 1879, the USGS had become the nation’s leading cartographic authority, standardizing the depiction of elevation, hydrography, settlement, and infrastructure across the United States. Here, its characteristic topographic language is especially effective: brown contour lines articulate the subtle rises above the Mississippi floodplain, blue waterways trace the Wolf River and associated lakes and channels, and darker urban patterning distinguishes the built-up fabric of Memphis. The result is at once technical and elegant, a map whose quiet clarity reveals how landform, transportation, and settlement governed the growth of one of the South’s most important cities.

The Mississippi River is the map’s great protagonist, shown with islands, bends, bars, and low-lying margins that speak to a constantly shifting alluvial world. Island No. 1 and President’s Island appear as distinctive features within this broad river corridor, reminders that Memphis owed its prosperity to both the opportunities and hazards of its waterfront position. The city’s bluff-top location, long prized for offering safer elevation above floodwaters, becomes legible through the contouring east of the river. Nearby channels, lakes such as Lower Hatchie Lake, and the course of the Wolf River add further texture, showing a landscape of backwaters, wetlands, and fertile bottomlands. In this setting, Memphis emerges not merely as an urban center, but as a strategic river city negotiating commerce, flood control, and geography.

Beyond the dense city core, the map records a surrounding world of small communities, farms, rail corridors, parks, and developing suburban edges. Frayser appears to the north, while Millington and the approaches toward northern Shelby County suggest the broader regional network feeding into Memphis. Overton Park is clearly part of the city’s civic landscape, a green counterpoint to the surrounding streets and neighborhoods, while the areas associated today with Shelby Farms Park and T.O. Fuller State Park point to larger patterns of open land, recreation, and institutional use on the metropolitan fringe. Roads and railroads cross the sheet with purpose, revealing Memphis as a transportation hub whose influence extended far beyond its city limits. This is a portrait of movement: freight, people, timber, cotton, and industry converging on the river.

As a historical document, the map is especially compelling because it preserves Memphis just before wartime and postwar transformations reshaped its physical form. The 1939 survey predates much of the interstate highway era, large-scale suburban expansion, and later redevelopment along the riverfront, making the mapped street patterns, rail yards, industrial districts, and rural margins particularly evocative. It shows a city already substantial, yet still bounded by open land and natural drainage systems that would later be altered, built over, or reimagined. For collectors, historians, and admirers of Southern urban geography, the map offers a richly layered view of Memphis in transition: a blues city, a cotton city, a river city, and an emerging modern metropolis, rendered with the disciplined beauty of classic USGS cartography.

Cities, towns and places on this map

• Memphis, Tennessee
• Mississippi River
• Island No. 1
• Wolf River
• President's Island
• Frayser
• Millington
• Shelby Farms Park
• T.O. Fuller State Park
• Overton Park
• Lower Hatchie Lake
• Midtown, Memphis
• Downtown, Memphis
• Roads and highways as depicted on the map
• Railroads as depicted on the map
• Other local landmarks or points of interest shown on the map

Historical context & cartographic details

• Produced by the US Geological Survey (USGS)
• Historical 1:62,500 topographical map of Memphis, Tennessee and the surrounding area
• Based on survey data from 1939, with a 1944 imprint
• The USGS is known for authoritative topographical mapping and helped modernize U.S. mapping techniques in the mid-20th century
• Uses color to represent elevation, land use, and other topographic features
• Contour lines show elevation changes and the region’s terrain near the Mississippi River
• Clearly demarcates urban areas, streets, developments, waterways, and natural features
• Documents Memphis before later major changes in infrastructure, population growth, urban development, and land use

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.