Abstract
Solving the problems of today's towns and thinking about their future development are unthinkable without knowledge of their development in the past. The article draws the reader's attention to a wide range of cartographic sources that can be used to study towns in past and past towns.
Particular attention is paid to the comparative and individual cartographic sources, their verbal value being documented on the example of the serfdom towns and the estate maps from the period before the industrialization.