Titled Alabama small state map, Jacques Liozu’s 1946 pictorial bird’s‑eye view distills the postwar South into a vivid, story-rich tableau. The artist-cartographer renders Alabama not through grids and meridians, but through bustling scenes: cotton pickers bent to the rows, factory hands at their shifts, anglers and hunters threading woods and water. City names sweep across the surface in an engaging hand, while vignettes animate the landscape from Mobile Bay up to the Appalachian foothills. Created at a moment when illustration served education and civic pride, the map doubles as a cultural primer, introducing travelers and students to the state’s varied livelihoods and pleasures. It is both an inventory of resources and a portrait of identity, brimming with regional color and mid‑century optimism.

Liozu’s hallmark style shines here—vibrant, theatrical, and meticulously choreographed. A decorative compass rose pirouettes in the upper corner, orienting the viewer even as the scene unfurls with narrative momentum. At the bottom, an artistic cartouche crowned with ALABAMA features workers whose tools and posture echo the state’s agrarian and industrial sinews. Rivers curl across the sheet in clear, labeled ribbons, while towns and cities appear in a lively, legible script that invites close reading. Rather than pursue surveyors’ precision, the composition privileges visual hierarchy and memory: the places that mattered in 1946 are made to stand forward, their economic roles telegraphed by emblematic figures, tools, smokestacks, crops, and animals.

The state’s urban engines coalesce into commanding vignettes, each a capsule of mid-century enterprise. Birmingham rises with belching smokestacks and sturdy foundries, the archetype of Southern industry. Mobile, gateway to the Gulf, suggests a humming port with docks, cranes, and maritime traffic. Montgomery’s presence straddles governance and commerce, while Huntsville and Decatur anchor the Tennessee River corridor. Tuscaloosa hints at river-borne trade and manufacturing; Gadsden, Anniston, and Selma appear as industrious nodes along rail and river. Agriculture radiates across the map: Dothan’s peanut country, Auburn’s agrarian learning tradition, cotton fields rippling around Florence, Tuscumbia, and smaller communities like Evergreen, Shelby, and Fayette. Workers stride through these scenes—mill hands, timber crews, farmers—embodying a state at the confluence of fields, forests, workshops, and warehouses.

Geography is the map’s narrative scaffolding. The Tennessee River sweeps across the north, binding Florence, Tuscumbia, Decatur, and Huntsville in a luminous arc of water and power. To the east, the Coosa and Tallapoosa descend from hill country, merging to form the Alabama River, whose broad, labeled course threads Montgomery and Selma en route to the Mobile–Tensaw Delta. The Black Warrior braids through Tuscaloosa; the Tombigbee and Chattahoochee define western and southeastern reaches, the latter brushing past Dothan. Vignettes punctuate floodplains and pine uplands with deer, quail, and fish, while boats skim bay and river. The Appalachians’ last folds rise gently in the northeast; the coastal plain flattens toward Mobile Bay. Recreational scenes—camping, hunting, angling—underscore how water and woods shaped everyday life.

Produced in 1946, the map channels post‑World War II confidence in regional self‑definition—and in art as a teaching tool. Liozu, renowned for transforming geography into a tableau of livelihoods, compresses civics, economics, and natural history into a single glance. The result reads like a mid‑century civic mural: accessible, celebratory, and packed with cues that turn place-names into stories. Birmingham, Montgomery, Huntsville, Mobile, and Tuscaloosa are set alongside Dothan, Decatur, Auburn, Anniston, Selma, Gadsden, Florence, Evergreen, Tuscumbia, Shelby, and Fayette, knitting metropolis and hamlet into one fabric. By privileging emblematic scenes over measurement, Liozu reveals a living atlas of the era—a state balancing crops and smokestacks, riverways and roadways, and the labor and leisure that defined Alabama at midcentury.

Cities and towns on this map

• Birmingham
• Montgomery
• Huntsville
• Mobile
• Tuscaloosa
• Dothan
• Decatur
• Auburn
• Anniston
• Selma
• Gadsden
• Florence
• Evergreen
• Tuscumbia
• Shelby
• Fayette

Notable Features & Landmarks

• Vignettes illustrating cotton picking, farming, and local fauna.
• Major industrial cities depicted with central vignettes showing smokestacks and workers.
• Decorative compass rose located in the upper corner.
• Labeled rivers and significant geographical features.
• City names prominently displayed in an engaging font.
• Artistic cartouche with "ALABAMA" at the bottom, depicting workers.

Historical and design context

• Title: Alabama small state map.
• Year created: 1946.
• Mapmaker: Jacques Liozu, known for his mid-century regional maps characterized by an illustrative style.
• Notes: A pictorial bird’s-eye view highlighting local industries, farm crops, and recreational activities, reflecting regional identity through engaging imagery.
• Themes shown: Local industries (agriculture and manufacturing), farm crops, recreational pastimes, and notable landmarks represented through vignettes.
• Coverage: Focuses on the state of Alabama.
• Design style: Vibrant and illustrative, emphasizing visual engagement over technical detail.
• Historical significance: Reflects post-World War II attitudes toward regional identity and education through art, illuminating Alabama’s economic and cultural landscape of the period.

Please double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.

This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 40in (100cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

The model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this map.

The fifth listing image shows an example of my map personalisation service.

If you’re looking for something slightly different, check out my collection of the best old maps to see if something else catches your eye.

Please contact me to check if a certain location, landmark or feature is shown on this map.

This would make a wonderful birthday, Christmas, Father's Day, work leaving, anniversary or housewarming gift for someone from the areas covered by this map.

This map is available as a giclée print on acid free archival matte paper, or you can buy it framed. The frame is a nice, simple black frame that suits most aesthetics. Please get in touch if you'd like a different frame colour or material. My frames are glazed with super-clear museum-grade acrylic (perspex/acrylite), which is significantly less reflective than glass, safer, and will always arrive in perfect condition.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.