City plans have been made for as long as cities needed to be understood, taxed, defended, or sold to newcomers. The most interesting examples come from the 17th through early 20th centuries, when cartographers balanced genuine surveying precision with engraving and printing craft that made the results worth framing. A good city plan from this era reads as both document and portrait, capturing a place at a specific moment in its history. The period originals shown here span that tradition.