Maps can be history. Maps can be art. Maps can help you find your way to the Minnesota History Center. 

There, you'll find a colorful exhibit of maps opening Saturday: “Minnesota on the Map: Four Centuries of Maps from the Society's Collection.”

It includes maps, atlases and artifacts from the vast Minnesota Historical Society collection, including:

• An atlas from 1595.
• A 1765 globe, which shows a mightier than ever Mississippi River and the Northwest passage, which existed in many minds but never in geographic reality.
• Early maps of North America, including an original copy of an Andreas atlas of Minnesota from 1874.

Check out some of the maps on display here.

The exhibit tries to show how the state was perceived first by explorers, later by settlers and how it is represented today.

The Historical Society’s entire collection includes more than 19,000 maps and nearly 2,000 volumes of atlases, most showing Minnesota from 1849 to the present. Most will not be on display for this exhibit's run, which ends Sept. 7. But you get an idea of the kinds of items they have in the back rooms and catacombs.

It won't be too long, I suppose, before there'll be an exhibit of GPS screens, or MapQuest versions of how to get from White Bear to Excelsior. But I'll always keep a handy map book tucked into the glove compartment.