Aerial Photography Archive

The Aerial Photography Archive site  is a research resource developed and maintained by the Department of Geography and supported by the Center for Computational Geography. The archive hosts an estimated 1000,00 aerial photographs with 24,000 from the period pre-1948. Over the last decade, 18,500  pre-1948 images, underwent high resolution (600 dpi) scanning and were geo-located (but not geo-coded). These photographs are available for selection and ordering  (for payment in the case of high resolution images) via the archive site. When selecting from a given search area, each aerial photograph pertaining to that area  appears as a red point. These points represent the center of the image and generate a set of co-ordinates. Some of the images are available in three sizes (S,M,L). When ordering it is advisable to generally chose the largest size.

To view the site click here

The archive is comprised of six collections:

  1. Photographs from the period 1917-1918 taken by the Prussian (German) air force during the course of WWI
  2. Photographs from the period 1917-1918 taken by the Australian air force during the course of WWI
  3. Photographs taken by 'American Colony in Jerusalem', 1946-1948. The original photographs are held by the Library of Congress, Washington DC
  4. Photographs taken by the Royal Air Force (RAF)  1944-1948 as part of a project to systematically map Palestine.
  5. Other photographs taken by the RAF for unknown purposes in the early Mandate period.
  6. Photographs taken by Israeli organizations such as the Jewish  Agency and Palmach prior to 1948 and  during the war of Independence.