Stephen Austin's Map
of Texas

Stephen F. Austin (1793B1836)
Mapa topográfico de la provincia de Texas, ca. 1822
Hand-colored manuscript map
Geography and Map Division (114.12)
[ G&M digital ID# g4030 ct000005 ]

Texas, the sparsely settled northeastern frontier of Mexico, was inadequately mapped when Stephen Austin visited there in 1821-1822 to locate and confirm a colonization grant originally made to his father. As a result of his travels, he prepared a manuscript map showing settlements in eastern Texas, annotated to show vegetation -- prairie land in yellow and wood land in green -- making it one of the earliest examples of American thematic mapping.