George Washington studied surveying, practiced it on familiar lands owned by his family, and was appointed as official surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia, by the young age of 17. The maps below, which date from different phases of Washington’s lifelong involvement with surveying and cartography, are from the collection of the Library of Congress. “Throughout his life as a soldier, planter, businessman, land speculator, farmer, military officer, and president,” writes the Library’s Edward Redmond, “Washington relied on and benefitted from his knowledge of maps.”

Source: Maps made by George Washington, longtime surveyor and cartographer.