About the project
Visualising Urban Geographies is a project that provides mapping tools for historians. It enables them to use digitized and geo-referenced maps in conjunction with historical information based on either addresses or districts. This spatial dimension enriches historical understanding and analysis, and can also be applied to other subject areas. The focus on Edinburgh is deliberate: to explore the potential of the mapping tools where there is available data and a wide range of suitable maps.
The project operates on several levels.
- 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.
- 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.
- Configuring Mapbuilder: in conjunction with a Google account this allows users to publish their own maps to the web.
- 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.