Pre-launch · request access
Walk through time, layer by layer.
HistoryCarto overlays georeferenced historical maps onto your live GPS. Drag the slider to dissolve between Victorian Sydney and today. Tap a landmark to read what stood there a century and a half ago.
The five modules
The pocket field-kit of a historical surveyor.
The time machine
- Live GPS with 'follow me' mode
- Layer toggle: modern basemap or historical raster
- Opacity slider to fade historical in and out
- Time slider through 1850, 1888, 1920, 1970, today
- Tap any POI pin for historical context, photos, text
Find any place, any era
- Search by modern address or historical name
- Curated collections and guided tours
- Optional push notifications in historically dense areas
Stitch maps into the archive
- Upload a flat image (TIFF, JPEG, PNG)
- Pin it to live coordinates with the in-app tool
- Your name credits every layer you contribute
Provenance, always visible
- Source archive of every map
- Year of publication and original cartographer
- No anonymous tiles, no orphan rasters
Walk without signal
- Download specific tile sets for offline use
- Metric / Imperial · DD / DMS coordinate formats
- Clear cache to free up storage
Free for browsing, Pro for the road
- Sign in with Email, Google, or Apple
- Onboarding tutorial for the time + opacity tools
- Profile with username, photo, and Contributed Maps
- Free forever for browsing
- Pro unlocks high-resolution maps and offline downloads
MOBILE APP · PREVIEW
Featured collection
Marvelous Melbourne, 1880.
The boom year. Three years before the property crash. Walk the laneways of the world's wealthiest gold-rush city as it stood at the height of its hubris. Banks the size of basilicas. Coffee palaces, opera houses, shopfronts that would shame a European capital.
Notify me when collections shipFor map archivists
Have a historical map gathering dust?
HistoryCarto's contributor tools turn flat scans into living layers. Pin landmarks against modern coordinates, share the result with the community, and get credited as a cartographic contributor on every map you stitch into the global archive.
Become a contributor- 01
Upload a flat scan. TIFF, JPEG, or IIIF manifest. Any era, any region.
- 02
Place ground control points. Click matching features on the old map and modern basemap. 6–12 points usually does it.
- 03
Publish. Your warped raster joins the global HistoryCarto layer index, with full source attribution.
- 04
Get credited. Your name appears in the metadata viewer alongside the original cartographer.
Access
Free for browsing. Pro for the road.
Pricing locks at launch. Early-access subscribers get the launch price for life.
Free
The complete map experience, free for life. Most users never need anything else.
- Unlimited browsing on mobile
- Full time slider + opacity + POI pins
- All curated collections + search
- Standard-resolution historical tiles
- Free contributor account with credits
- Source provenance always visible
Pro
Most popularTwo perks, both load-bearing. For archivists, educators, and tour guides who need detail and reach.
- Everything in Free
- High-resolution raster downloads
- Offline city packs for the road
Questions
Asked and answered.
When does HistoryCarto launch?
The mobile app is in development. The marketing site you're reading is the pre-launch teaser. Join the waitlist below and we'll write the moment beta access opens.
What cities will be available at launch?
Sydney and Melbourne to start, with curated historical layers from the 1850s onward. More cities follow as we onboard new georeferenced layers and contributor uploads.
Is there an Android version?
HistoryCarto is built for mobile platforms. We'll confirm the exact iOS / Android launch sequence before beta opens — join the waitlist for the announcement.
Do I need an account to use HistoryCarto?
You can browse without one. To contribute maps or unlock Pro features, sign in with Email, Google, or Apple. We don't sell your data, and your contribution credits stay with your account.
Where do the historical maps come from?
Public-domain archives and community contributions. Sources we're working with include the National Library of Australia, the State Libraries of NSW and Victoria, the David Rumsey Map Collection, and MapWarper. Every map carries its source archive, year, and original cartographer. Sources may evolve as we onboard more collections.
Can I contribute my own historical maps?
Yes — that's the whole contributor program. If you have a scan of a historical paper map and the rights to share it, the in-app georeferencing tool walks you through pinning it to live coordinates. You get credited as a contributor on every overlay you stitch.
What happens if I lose signal mid-walk?
Download tile sets for the cities you're visiting before you go. HistoryCarto caches them on-device and the time slider keeps working with no signal. Free up storage with one-tap cache clearing when you're done. You can also switch between Metric and Imperial, and between decimal-degree and degree-minute-second coordinate formats.
Is it free?
Browsing is free forever. Pro ($5/month) adds high-resolution map downloads and offline city packs. Final pricing locks at launch.
Early access
Get in line for beta access.
One short email when HistoryCarto opens to beta testers. No newsletter, no promo blast. Unsubscribe with one click.
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