Road Map of India

Survey of India, Road Map of India, Sixth edition, 1945

Lithograph on paper, folding map issued as a book with printed paper covers. When folded, it is 19 x 14 cm and opens to 112.5 x 78.7 cm

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Roads of the Raj at War’s End—The Survey of India’s Definitive 1945 Road Map on the Eve of Independence

Issued in January 1945 under the direction of Brigadier C. Lewis by the Survey of India, Calcutta, this sixth edition of the Road Map of India represents one of the final major cartographic statements of the late colonial state, produced at the threshold of Independence and Partition. By this date, the Survey of India had evolved into one of the world’s most technically advanced national mapping agencies, drawing upon decades of triangulation, cadastral survey, aerial reconnaissance, and military cartography refined through two world wars.

Conceived as a functional instrument rather than an atlas piece, the map focuses with striking clarity on India’s rapidly developing road infrastructure, while also detailing railways, rivers, regional boundaries, and mileage markings printed in green. Three distinct road grades are carefully differentiated: major through routes shown in heavy red lines, other principal roads in thinner red, and “motorable” roads—liable to seasonal disruption—in the finest red notation. Shaded relief provides essential physiographic context, while a dense hierarchy of symbols identifies towns, junctions, and administrative centres, reflecting the increasing role of demographic planning and logistical intelligence in mid-twentieth-century mapping.

The sheet offers a unique documentary insight into the dual civilian and military character of late-imperial infrastructure. Compiled during the closing phase of the Second World War, when India served as a critical logistical base for Allied operations—particularly in relation to the Burma theatre—the map’s arterial networks underscore the strategic importance of road mobility alongside the established railway system. Inset maps extend coverage to peripheral and militarily significant regions, including much of Burma and Baluchistan, reinforcing its operational intent.

In an unusually revealing provision for travellers, the legend extends beyond conventional cartographic symbols into the practical realities of movement across wartime India. It identifies places where delays may occur; where arrangements are usually available; and where none exist at all, further distinguishing towns with hotels or food and lodging, those offering lodging only, and those without any accommodation or provisions. Such detail transforms the map into a rare contemporary guide to the lived geography of transit, supply, and travel conditions in the final years of empire.

The present example is further enlivened by green manuscript notations tracing a journey from Bombay across the subcontinent to Calcutta and then south along the coastline through Madras, Bangalore, Madura, and Trivandrum, with additional cities underlined—including Sholapur, Lahore, Peshawar, and others—offering a striking personal overlay upon the official cartographic grid.

Politically, the map records the subcontinent in its last unified colonial configuration, encompassing British provinces alongside major princely states only two years before Independence irrevocably transformed its borders. Today this map gives an interesting insight into facilities for travellers. The key includes information on places where delay may occur; where arrangements are usually available and on places where no arrangements are available; places with hotels or food and lodging; places with lodging only; and places without food or lodging.

The Survey of India itself remains central to this legacy. Founded in 1767 by Major James Rennell, the first Surveyor General, it is the oldest scientific department of the Government of India and the institution responsible for the Great Trigonometrical Survey (1802–1852), one of the greatest feats of mapping in world history, undertaken by figures such as Lambton and Sir George Everest. With Independence in 1947, the Survey was incorporated into the modern Indian state, where it continues to serve as the national mapping authority.

A scarce and revealing survival of late-imperial cartography, this 1945 road map stands as both a strategic artefact of global war and a poignant record of India’s infrastructural and political landscape on the eve of transformation.

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