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About the project

Visualising Urban Geographies was a project which ran from 2008-2011, which provided mapping tools for historians. It enabled them to use digitized and geo-referenced maps in conjunction with historical information based on either addresses or districts. This spatial dimension enriched historical understanding and analysis, and was also be applied to other subject areas. The focus on Edinburgh was deliberate: to explore the potential of the mapping tools where there was available data and a wide range of suitable maps.

These pages have not been updated since 2011 when the project ended. Some of the tools, such as Mapbuilder, no longer work and the pages on them have been deleted.

Please view the following links for updated content and improved tools:

The project operated on several levels.

  1. Inspection: Bringing together geo-referenced maps in a single place enables change over time to be identified by overlaying maps of different periods. Distance, area and altitude are built in features.
  2. Mapbuilder: this enables allows users to use a geocoder to obtain latitude and longitude for their address-based data and plot it on a suitable historical map.
  3. Configuring Mapbuilder: in conjunction with a Google account this allows users to publish their own maps to the web.
  4. Thematic mapping: using boundaries and jurisdictions for the city, registration and other districts you can use data collected by area to develop charts and maps representing changes in demographic, social and political data.