Welcome to the Petroleum Map Catalog! Please note that although this page can be viewed by anyone, the linked pages containing detailed listings are for Members only.

This catalog covers maps issued by oil companies in North America, specifically the United States and Canada with some maps of Mexico also listed. Foreign maps are generally excluded, although some are mentioned when issued by an American company.

Pages with Detailed Listings

The full company index link at the top of the page provides an alternative way of finding the brand that you are looking for.

Explanation of detailed tables:

• The states and cities are listed in alphabetical order based on the map title. The title, however, may not always be shown with the states in the exact sequence used on the map. Also, in some cases, the name may even be different such as Northern New England for Maine-N.H.-Vermont; this is necessary to avoid complexity and lengthening the tables.
• The symbol ‘ .. ‘ means the map was not issued and is not covered on another map at approximately the same level of detail.
• The symbol ‘ — ‘ means the map was not issued but at least part of it is covered on another map at about the same level of detail.
• The letters RM, GD etc. indicate that a map was published and indicates the publisher of that map. For specific names, see the list of cartographer codes.
• When no symbol appears, it simply is not known what was or was not issued.
• Major brand pages will generally include tables for acquired subsidiaries, but groups formed since the 1970s are generally kept apart. Thus Exxon and Mobil have separate pages; as do BP-Sohio, Amoco and Arco; Chevron, Gulf and Texaco (and Getty & Skelly); Conoco, Phillips, Union & Pure. Marathon appears as a major with its own page; Ashland appears on Minor Brands (A).

Included in this catalog are maps published for oil or gasoline companies and generally distributed free by them. In more recent times the maps have been sold, but this selling is not a consideration for listing them. The listings have been limited to maps truly published for the oil companies. Excluded have been maps simply distributed by them, for example some commercial maps are found with dealer names stamped on them but clearly not printed for the oil company; nor are maps printed for local associations or publicity bureaus which might contain oil company advertising and even have been distributed by an oil company listed. However special maps such as world’s fair or exhibition maps, war maps, and atlases or map booklets (but not touring booklets) are also listed.

Many maps which should be shown in the detailed listings included in this catalog are still unknown to collectors. As these maps are located, it is intended to update this catalog. Additionally, material from companies for which detailed listings are not provided is also appreciated in order to include those companies as future updates. As this catalog matures, it is hoped that more information on both the oil companies and map publishing companies can be provided. In addition, pictures of map covers would greatly enhance this catalog and it is hoped that this too will eventually be included.

A map generally has to be reported as actually seen to be included in this catalog. Often a map contains some type of advertising or marginal notation which indicates that other maps also exist. As a rule these maps have been omitted (except for the title) since experience has shown that maps printed one year have been indicated in subsequent years as still being available, when in fact new editions were not printed. In limited cases, data has also been obtained from the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries.

Background to the catalog

This catalog of oil company road maps was truly a cooperative effort from its beginning in 1981 and continues to be such. From 1981 a number of collectors, realizing that oil company maps were soon going to be a thing of the past, pooled their knowledge and shared data from their collections in order to produce this catalog. The following collectors deserve special thanks for their help in the 1980s in making the original catalog possible: Jim Bill, David Compas, Joseph Cronin, Dave Leach, Noel Levy, Dave Prentice, and Tom Taylor. Stan DeOrsey typed much of the original listings and distributed the catalog among collectors. The paper catalog ran to over 140 pages of densely filled quarto pages.

Although many more map issues were discovered over the next 20 years, many collectors still treasured their copy of the 1992 Catalog, and hoped that some day it could be updated.

This digital version started in the summer of 2011 when Jeff Dunn through the Texas Map Society arranged for the Summerlee Foundation to fund Sandra Sepulveda to type the paper catalog into spreadsheet files. Mark Greaves, Ian Byrne, and Stan DeOrsey proofread the tables, and Ian Byrne converted to this digital version in WordPress.

All the original catalog entries were uploaded to the RMCA website by July 2012. The 140 paper pages now stretched across some 38 web pages, including indices and tables of codes. However there were a number of major omissions, including all maps issued by BP and Citgo (as opposed to Cities Service), as well as Chevron maps since 1966, Gulf maps since 1956, Marathon maps since 1961 and Union 76 maps since 1967. These gaps, along with updated information from a further 20 years of collecting by RMCA members enabled us to undertake a complete revision of the tables.

Updates

Data in these pages was known to be incomplete, but it is intended to show every known issue by brand, state and year, indicating the cartographer concerned. Therefore RMCA members were encouraged to send through updated information (and still are). In Legend 55 we set out a schedule of updates spread over 2013/4 to make the process manageable. Between January 2013 and September 2014 we added several thousand extra maps, and significant number of smaller brands to the tables. The company index was also updated to provide around 30 additional names and around 140 extra links, mainly to brands for which detailed listings were added in the update phase. This period has now ended, but we are still pleased to receive ad hoc updates. Ideally they should be sent to Stan DeOrsey, Mark Greaves and Ian Byrne.

A second round of comprehensive updates is currently in progress, starting in November 2018 and scheduled to last for 12-18 months – notification of pages being updated will be made through the roadmaps-l list, but the work is being carried out broadly in alphabetical order. During this period, pages may occasionally contain broken links, as some of the largest pages are being split to make them faster to download and easier to scroll through.

Last update: January 19, 2019

Content © Road Map Collectors Association, 2014-19 based on Stan DeOrsey’s 1983 Map Catalog (updated to 1992)