Free Amazingly Colourful Educational Geography Posters

The stunning geography posters in this collection are all by Levi Yaggy. They are from a group of beautiful geography charts used in schools in the US from 1887.

In the past, I have shared collections of illustrated zoological posters and botanical posters from the Larousse Illustrated dictionaries. This collection of chromolithographic prints focuses on large educational geography posters that were actually used in the classroom.

Yaggy published a teacher’s handbook to accompany these amazing educational charts called, “Teacher’s handbook: designed to accompany Yaggy’s Geographical Study ” which can be downloaded here.

There is also a collection of French Natural History classroom posters on Pictureboxblue by Emile Deyrolle.

The Vintage Chromoligraphic Educational Charts

Chromolithography is a unique method for making multi-color prints. It was a successful method of color printing using chemicals developed in the 19th Century. Chromolithography was a highly skilled art and prints could take weeks or even months to produce.

The print technique was used to produce excellent colourful and vibrant results that can be seen from Yaggy’s large geographical charts. They are some of the most beautiful old-school charts I have come across.

I know they were initially for educational purposes. Still, the colours and artwork in these vintage geography posters are so beautiful that they would look fabulous framed and hung as home decor. Who knew geography could look so beautiful?

Luckily these geography charts are relatively large; the images are the original size of about 86cm (3ft) in width at 300dpi. To download the larger picture, click on the title above the print you want, and it should open in a new tab in your browser.

If you right-click with your mouse whilst on the large picture, you should have the menu option “save as”, enabling you to save the image to your device.

As the original images are so large, I recommend sending the files to your local or an online print shop to print the poster on quality paper.

1. Geographical Definitions Illustrated

This fine color chromolithograph educational geography poster is an illustrated definition of geographical terms.

From the definitions of many different natural landscape features and coastal definitions to urban and man-made geographical features.

2. Geological Chart

A vintage educational poster of a geological model of the earth’s core and surface, including an illustration of a volcano.

The layers of the earth’s core are named and labeled along with the different types of clouds in the sky.

I love the vibrant colors of this geology chart, it makes the earth’s crust look like a rainbow and a piece of artwork.

3. View of Nature in Ascending Order – Geography Chart

An educational geography poster illustrating the world’s mountains and volcanoes.

The major mountains are shown for each of the world’s continents (except Antarctica). The chart includes other exciting details, such as when certain 19th Century explorers climbed the mountains.

Major Mountain Cities are also named, including Denver, Leadville, Animas Forks, Mexico City, Toluca, St. Bernhard, St. Gothard, Birmingham, London, Chambury, Cashmere, Darjeeling, Dangoutre and Pamachun.

The chart interestingly also shows the major crops grown by region.

If you are interested in mountain sketches and mountain charts there are several more on Picutreboxblue.

4. View of Nature in Descending Order – Geography Chart

A fine color print focusing on the sea life of the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean.

For more colourful natural history sealife posters, try the Adolphe Millot collection. And check out these vintage nautical illustrations.

5. Geography Print – Arctic Zone

Yaggy’s geographical illustration of the Arctic Zone. The poster depicts a domestic igloo scene, with Eskimoes in kayaks hunting a polar bear, penguins, and sea lions.

Interestingly, this geographical poster has both penguins and polar bears illustrated. However, the two species would never meet in real life except in zoos, as polar bears are confined to the Northern Hemisphere and the Arctic. At the same time, penguins are only found in the Southern Hemisphere and the Antarctic regions.

The picture also depicts a wonderful illustrated scene of the Northern Lights.

There are many vintage maps of the North Pole to download for free on Pictureboxblue.

6. Tropical Zone

Yaggy’s geographical posters of the tropical zone. The picture depicts a jungle scene with animals.

7. Temperate Zone

This geography poster of Yaggy depicts modern civilization at the time. The poster contains famous buildings worldwide, from Big Ben and the House of Parliament to Chinese temples. There are many churches, cathedrals and factories illustrated too.

8. Geographical Climatic Chart

A pleasing colour world map, with fascinating (and very 19th Century Anglocentric) images of humans along the bottom of the map.

The world chart is peppered with mammal illustrations for each continent. These illustrations look very similar to those of Adolphe Millot’s animal posters.

There are many collections of world maps on Pictureboxblue.

Other Related Collections

There are some Yaggy planetary posters in the astronomical poster collection on Picture Box Blue.

If you loved these posters then you will love the beautiful geographical maps of the Mississippi River by Harold Fisk and the amazing educational pictorial maps of Ernest Dudley Chase.

If you enjoyed these geographical posters, don’t forget to check out the huge collection of free maps to download on Pictureboxblue.com.

There are also many more free old educational posters to print here including these amazing Victorian Science Posters and astronomy prints by John Emslie.