The city of London has long been a subject for panoramas by artists, mapmakers, and topographers.
The earliest topographical drawings preceded maps according to modern definition, although they were mainly based on surveys or multiple drawings reduced to a (fairly) consistent perspective, as it is clearly impossible for them to have been produced from any single real viewpoint, unlike modern photographic panoramas.
Amongst the earliest known is that by Flemish topographer Anton van den Wyngaerde, produced in 1543 and published by London Topographical Society in 1881 with key added on bottom as reproduced here:[1] Others include Van Visscher's of 1616: Wenceslaus Hollar's Long View of London from Bankside of 1647: Another by Hollar, 1666 Many modern panoramic photographs of London exist, from many different viewpoints: Google Street View, a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth, provides connected and interactive panoramas from locations around the world, including throughout all of London, with views outdoors and indoors.
Street panoramas are all connected along solid blue lines, so that the user may virtually "drive" around on London streets from one panorama to the next (by clicking with the mouse pointer in the view), and look around in all directions from any point along the journey (by swiping the picture in the desired direction, or clicking on the compass-like rotation icon).
Some off-street panoramas are connected with (typically dotted) blue lines to each other, while the blue circles on the map are standalone panoramas (called "image spheres"), which provide a single 360-degree view (usually with no connectivity to other views).