Category: Social Sciences, Image, Pictorial survey, National Library of Scotland

In 1693 the first ever pictorial survey of Scotland was published by military engineer John Slezer.

'Theatrum Scotiae' is his volume of detailed engravings that shows us what important Scottish towns and buildings looked like over 300 years ago.
Search and browse images

More than 70 of Slezer's original engravings from the National Library of Scotland's collections have been digitised. You can search for them here by place name, and browse by place and subject.

There is text from Slezer's book with most of our zoom-and-pan images, and we give links to relevant online maps.