In 1862 Samuel Smedley published his atlas of Philadelphia. Since Philadelphia city and county were combined in 1854, Philadelphia has been considered a city, and Smedley's was the first of the classic nineteenth century Pennsylvania city atlases. This atlas appeared shortly after Henry Bridgens published his 1861 Berks County atlas, the first county atlas. These atlases were published for general sale as money makers to supercede wall maps. So, it is only natural that Philadelphia (and suburbs), with its large population, accounts for the lion's share of city atlases. The firms of Elvino V. Smith and G.W. Bromley dominated the Philadelphia business, publishing ward atlases for over thirty years at the turn of the century. Pittsburgh is a distant second and only a few of the other larger cities had atlases created for them.

This list does not include insurance company atlases, such as those of Philadelphia from Ernest Hexamer & Co. which date as early as 1857-58. Hexamer was absorbed by the Sanborn insurance map company in 1916. Sanborn insurance atlases and maps of Pennsylvania towns and cities can be seen at Penn State Library. These insurance atlases were not available to the public. Road atlases, geological atlases and some other general collections of maps not called atlases are also not included. The atlases here are listed in alphabetical order by city and include ones issued up to 1950.