For a map exhibition that doesn’t even open until November, the Field Museum’s Maps: Finding Our Place in the World is sure getting a lot of advance publicity — I first reported on it last September. But organizers believe the Chicago event is worth the hype, according to this Associated Press story on today’s official announcement of the exhibition: they’re calling it “the most ambitious cartography exhibit ever in North America.”

Pieces confirmed for display include a 3,500-year-old clay tablet detailing walls, gates and palaces in the town of Nippur in what is now Iraq; three drawings by Leonardo da Vinci rarely lent from the English royal collection; the map Charles Lindbergh carried with him on his history-making flight from New York to Paris; and drawings by author J. R. R. Tolkien of his fictional Middle-earth.

All told, the exhibition — which runs from November 2 to January 27 — will have more than 100 rare and significant maps. Sounds impressive. No mention is made in the article of the concurrent Festival of Maps in Chicago, but it’s definitetly part of the festivities.