Historical Aerial Photographs

Halifax Municipal Archives has hundreds of aerial photographs, dating from the 1940s to the 2000s, that document significant changes to our landscape and built heritage. Here are a few ways to find them:

• Search for "aerial photograph" in the Archives Database
• Browse through a virtual exhibit of 60 selected photos from across the region: Flying to the Past: Selected Historical Aerial Photographs
• Use our Historical Aerial Photographs Index Map to find and view aerial photos on an interactive map. The index map currently has two aerial surveys: one from 1955, the other from 2001. More photographs will be added once we are able to geo-reference them.

For mobile use, full sized map or issues loading the map, use this link.

Other Sources for Historical Aerial Photographs

• Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources Library
• Nova Scotia Geomatics Centre
• The Richard McCully Aerial Photograph Collection, 1931 at Nova Scotia Archives
• National Air Photo Library Eastern Shore collection, 1931-1945, at Eastern Shore Archives
• Early Aerial Photography and contributions to Digital Earth: The Case of the 1921 Halifax air survey mission of Canada by Dirk Werle, 2016 (61 aerial photos available as ID:K-2 Nr:1-61 at National Air Photo Library): https://cyberleninka.org/article/n/638807/viewer

Acknowledgments

The  Fly to the Past virtual exhibit was part of a Canada 150 Community Albums project funded by the Public Archives of Nova Scotia Board of Advisors, Nova Scotia Archives, and the Council of Nova Scotia Archives. The project supports searching within our album of aerial photos as well as across 21 albums from other archives in Nova Scotia. You can click on the digital images in the Virtual Exhibit to see full descriptions of each photograph, and zoom in to see incredible details in the aerial images.

Geo-referencing for the Historical Aerial Photographs Index Map was done by Dalhousie Master of Information student Jesse Burgess.