Abstract It is only in the last 100 years or so that most of Britain has been covered by accurate, published, topographic and geological maps. Although travellers’ guides were available from the late seventeenth century, they lacked adequate maps. Whilst fairly accurate maps of the major roads were published in the early seventeenth century as strip maps, topographic maps were not generally available until the nineteenth century. Cartographers, usually when preparing county maps, struggled with the representation of Britain’s varied topography. In the nineteenth century, medium-scale (1-inch-to-the-mile) topographic maps initially developed through the agency of the prizes offered by the Royal Society of Arts but primarily due to the Ordnance Survey. Geological maps benefitted from improved base maps – those of John Cary and the Ordnance Survey. This paper especially explores and illustrates the development of maps and the role they played in the depiction and understanding of landscape and promotion of the major early geotourism region of the Peak District from 1780 to 1930.