Read published life stories and investigate the numbers behind community estimates.
Aquinnah: a living homelandVineyard & Cape
Martha’s Vineyard MuseumVineyard & Cape
Oak Bluffs: Black heritageVineyard & CapeExplore six towns, living Wampanoag communities, Black heritage, harbors, books, land, and public life.
Vineyard Haven is a village in Tisbury. Dukes County also includes the Elizabeth Islands; the county and Martha’s Vineyard are not exactly the same place.
Town boundaries and government maps do not define the full history of Wampanoag homelands.
Open the six-town map →Vineyard Haven, Martha’s Vineyard
Island objects and stories connect maritime work, community life, and a changing landscape. Explore how the Vineyard links local experiences with wider histories.
How does living on an island shape people’s choices and connections?
Aquinnah, Martha’s Vineyard
At the Edwin D. Vanderhoop Homestead, the center shares Aquinnah Wampanoag self-defined history and living culture through exhibits and community knowledge.
Why is it important for a community to tell its own story?
Martha’s Vineyard
Marked places and community research preserve the stories of Black residents and visitors across the island. Explore how public memory grows when overlooked lives are researched.
Which person in your community deserves a place on a heritage trail?
statewide · 2000s
Counties group towns and cities. Find Dukes County and compare it with Berkshire County.
How can a county include several islands?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1900s
Read contour lines, settlements, roads, and water on an island topographic map.
Where are the hills and where is the land flatter?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1600s
Study a photographed copy of an early annotated island map.
Which place names can you find today?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
![[Chart of Nantucket Island and the eastern half of Martha's Vineyard]](assets/atlas-exact/7h149z539.jpg)
Vineyard · 1700s
Study an eighteenth-century chart of the two islands.
What information would help a ship avoid shallow water?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1700s
See how the island was drawn in an eighteenth-century printed map.
Which neighboring islands are included?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1700s
Explore an island town survey made in 1795.
How do the town divisions compare with today?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1800s
Study Thomas Dunham’s 1831 town plan.
What did the surveyor choose to label?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1800s
Inspect Henry H. Crapo’s 1830 plan of Edgartown.
Which water features help you locate the town?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1800s
Read a nineteenth-century chart of today’s Vineyard Haven harbor.
What can the water-depth numbers tell a sailor?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
regional · 1800s
Compare Cape Cod with the island counties on one map.
How does water connect these counties?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1800s
Explore a bird’s-eye view of Edgartown streets, buildings, and harbor.
How is a bird’s-eye view different from an overhead map?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1800s
Look at a view of the place now called Oak Bluffs.
What clues suggest that visitors traveled here?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1900s
Explore roads, settlements, and travel information on this 1913 island map.
Which places would a visitor want to find?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1900s
Compare a late-twentieth-century island map with older ones.
Which kinds of information became more detailed?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Vineyard · 1900s
Investigate mapped changes in how land was used in Edgartown.
What changes might replace open land?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
regional · 2000s
Compare regional travel connections, including Vineyard ferry-route insets.
How would you combine two kinds of transportation?
Compare the map’s creator, date, purpose, scale, and missing information with a second map. Explain what changed and what stayed connected.
Browse a curated history of regional and island maps.
Which map would you choose to study a changing shoreline?
Open the official map resource ↗Find prepared maps of town planning, watersheds, zoning, and more.
How would a watershed map help a town make decisions?
Open the official map resource ↗Explore local GIS maps for Dukes County and its island towns.
How do different layers tell different stories about one place?
Open the official map resource ↗Explore the MVPCS land-evidence collection and the history of West Tisbury.
Discover MVPCS →
Brazilian Martha’s Vineyard
Community voices
Open the six-town map →
Discover MVPCS →