The Department of Geography of Humboldt-Universität transferred the older parts of its collection to the University Library in 2019, referred since as ‘Historical Geographic Collection’. More recent parts remained at the institute, mainly for teaching purposes. In addition to historical nautical and geographical maps (approx. 5,000 maps published before 1870), the historical collection includes a photo archive with around 120 portraits of personalities from the field of geography, 640 aerial photographs and around 700 landscape photographs.