Guide · Aerial history
Historical aerials of a Florida parcel: what was there before
Old aerial photos show what stood on a Florida parcel before today's owner: an orchard, a dump, a gas station, a pond that was filled. Free archives reach back to 1937 in some counties, and online maps go back to 1938 in Hillsborough, 1941 in Leon and 1972 along the Gulf coast's water district, but most of the state starts in the 1990s. Line the years up, then look for what changed.
Why look at the past
Land keeps its history. A lot that was a borrow pit in 1972 may hold soft fill today; a field beside a crop duster's strip may have seen pesticides; a canal can be dug and filled again in thirty years. An environmental site assessment reviews this history: the federal All Appropriate Inquiries rule, 40 CFR 312.24, requires historical records to be reviewed and lists aerial photographs among them. A buyer of a single lot can do a lighter version for free.
How to read a parcel through the years
- Find the parcel now. Note the corners against things that last: road bends, canals, old tree lines.
- Step back one flight at a time. Each step, ask what appeared or vanished: a building, a cleared patch, standing water, a track.
- Mark the year it changed. The year a structure first shows narrows when it was built; the roll's year built is often a later rebuild.
- Check a storm year. Post-hurricane flights show which land flooded or lost roofs.
How far back each county goes
We counted, for six counties, the years of aerial imagery our map offers somewhere in the county and the share of dated buildings on the roll built after the oldest photo. The higher that share, the more parcels the slider shows as they were before the building.
| County | Oldest year on the map | Years offered | Parcels with a year built | Built after the oldest photo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hillsborough | 1938 | 24 | 478,213 | 97.0% |
| Leon | 1941 | 19 | 95,426 | 97.9% |
| Pinellas | 1972 | 23 | 410,036 | 54.2% |
| St. Johns | 1994 | 19 | 141,596 | 72.7% |
| Marion | 1994 | 16 | 186,752 | 55.8% |
| Miami-Dade | 1994 | 24 | 868,817 | 30.4% |
Hillsborough's 1938-39 black-and-white flight and Leon's 1941 USDA flight predate almost every building standing there now. Pinellas was half built by 1972, the year the water district's flights begin. Miami-Dade has as many years as Hillsborough but starts in 1994, after 70% of its buildings went up. Across all 67 counties the median is 15 years of imagery, and every county has some. The 1994 photos were flown between 1990 and 1996, so the label is the series, not always the day.
The free archives for older years
- University of Florida. The Aerial Photography: Florida collection holds flights from 1937 to 1990, browsable by county, year and flight, with downloads. Coverage varies by county.
- FDOT. The Department of Transportation's aerial photography archive, searched through APLUS, calls itself the largest collection of Florida aerial images.
- LABINS. The state's historical images page points to scanned frames back to the 1940s.
- USGS. EarthExplorer serves federal frames, including the 1980s high-altitude program.
These are raw frames: unrectified, so a parcel's lines will not lie on them exactly. You match the landmarks by eye.
Where old photos stop
- Gaps. Most counties have nothing before 1990 online. A decade can pass between flights.
- Resolution. Early photos show buildings and clearings, not drums or tanks. Something small, or under trees, will not show.
- Not proof. A photo shows what was visible from the air. It does not show what was buried, permitted or spilled, and the University of Florida warns its scans are not for measurement or legal use.
On Map Views
Open the Layers tab and look under Map view. Under Aerial, the year slider stops only at the years flown under the middle of the map, oldest at the left and Now at the right; the list beneath names each source for the year shown. Storm buttons appear where a storm was flown in view, from Irma in 2017 onward. For the ground itself, see elevation and contours; for what to check on vacant land, vacant land due diligence.
The photographs are federal, state, water district and county flights, shown as their agencies publish them. An environmental site assessment by a qualified professional, and the agencies' own records, are the authority on a site's past use.