DH GIS Projects

Being a list of Digital Humanities GIS (Geographical Information Systems) projects. See this post for background. Not included here are projects directed at digitizing old maps; valuable though that is, what I list here are investigations. It is far from complete; I will be adding to it for the next few months, and then hopefully it will be replaced by a crowd-sourced version.

Addressing History

Scottish Post Office directories and contemporary maps. The execution of this project is excellent. http://addressinghistory.edina.ac.uk/

AfricaMap

Part of the Harvard World Map project. http://africamap.harvard.edu/

Animated Atlas of African History

Flash-based map of Africa, available on the web as downloadable executables for Mac and Windows. http://www.brown.edu/Research/AAAH/index.htm

Batanes Islands Cultural Atlas

A Cultural Atlas that includes maps, a timeline, and images of Batanes, the northern most province of the Philippines. http://ecai.org/batanesatlas/index.html

Beijing in Transition

A Historical GIS Study of Urban Cultures, 1912-1937. In Chinese and English. http://www.iseis.cuhk.edu.hk/history/beijing/index.htm

Belgisch HISGIS

Geo-historical statistics, 1800-1963/2003. http://www.hisgis.be/

Beyond Steel

Industry and Society in 19th and 20th century LeHigh County, Pennsylvania. http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/beyondsteel/

CHALICE

Under development. Creating a historic placename gazetteer for the U.K. http://chalice.blogs.edina.ac.uk/

Charles Booth Online Archive

Archive of the Victorian social investigator, including his famed poverty maps of London.  http://booth.lse.ac.uk/

China Historical GIS

Covering Chinese history between 221 BCE and 1911 CE. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis/

Chinese Civilization in Time and Space

Ambitious project that appears dormant, without having produced any maps. http://ccts.ascc.net/index.php?lang=en

Cleveland Historical

The only mobile phone app produced by academics that I’ve found, unfortunately supported by a mapless website. http://clevelandhistorical.org/

Colonial Dispatches

Digitizations of maps, many with added placename information, as part of a large archive on Vancouver Island and British Columbia. http://bcgenesis.uvic.ca/

Cultural Atlas of Australia

“An interactive digital map that explores Australian places and spaces as they are represented in and through films, novels, and plays.” http://australian-cultural-atlas.info/CAA/

Danish Folklore

Bilingual (English / Danish) project mapping Danish folklore and Kristensen’s investigations of it. http://projects.cdh.ucla.edu/danishfolklore/bin/index.html

Dictionary of Sydney

Important and ambitious attempt to annotate Sydney. http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/

Digital Atlas of Indonesian History

Accompanying, and expanding upon, Robert Cribb’s Historical Atlas of Indonesia (NIAS Press, 2000; h-net review), this site requires a serial number from the book for full access. http://www.indonesianhistory.info/

Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilization

Comprehensive coverage of early Eurasian civilizations. http://darmc.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k40248&pageid=icb.page188865

Digital Atlas on the History of Europe since 1500

Bilingual (English / German) site, under construction but with many interesting static maps. http://www.atlas-europa.de/

Digital Gazetteer of the Song Dynasty

Very impressive project on the (re)organizations of China during the Song epoch. http://songgis.ucmercedlibrary.info/

Digital Harlem

Very fine website focusing on Afro-Americans in inter-war Harlem, New York. http://acl.arts.usyd.edu.au/harlem/ Also blogging at http://digitalharlemblog.wordpress.com/

Digital Literary Atlas of Ireland, 1922-1949

http://www.tcd.ie/longroomhub/digital-atlas/

Driving Through Time

The landscape of the Blue Ridge Parkway, USA, a 469 mile ‘elongated park.’ http://docsouth.unc.edu/blueridgeparkway/

Falmouth Project

Architecture and history of the town of Falmouth, Jamaica. http://falmouth.lib.virginia.edu/

Geodia

Visualizing the temporal, geographic, and material aspects of ancient Mediterranean civilizations. http://geodia.laits.utexas.edu/

German Traces NYC

The German presence in New York City. Available in three different flavours: for mobile phones, as web page and augmented reality application. http://www.germantracesnyc.org/

Going to the Show

Mapping movie-going in North Carolina. http://docsouth.unc.edu/gtts/

Google Ancient Places

Mining Google Books for Geographic data relating to Antiquity. http://googleancientplaces.wordpress.com/

Grub Street Project

Very interesting mapping of early modern London’s literature and publishing using contemporary maps. http://grubstreetproject.net/

Hestia

Mapping the ancient Mediterranean via Herodotus. http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/hestia/

Hidden Patterns of the Civil War

A set of interrelated projects on the American Civil War, of which 5 are maps. http://dsl.richmond.edu/civilwar/

HISGIS

Dutch National GIS under development (and in Dutch). http://www.hisgis.nl/hisgis/gewesten/utrecht/atlas_utrecht-1/welkom-op-de-hisgis-site

Historical Geography of facilities for people with intellectual disabilities in Australia

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~d.earl/maps/index.html

Holocaust Geographies

Under development; a blurb can be found at http://www.stanford.edu/group/spatialhistory/cgi-bin/site/project.php?id=1015

Hypercities

“A digital research and educational platform for exploring, learning about, and interacting with the layered histories of city and global spaces.” http://hypercities.com

Kansas City Literary Map

Marking literary landmarks across Kansas, Texas, USA. http://www.jocolibrary.org/default.aspx?id=3757

Linguistic Atlas Projects

Studying English dialects in the USA. http://www.lap.uga.edu/

Linguistic geographies: the Gough Map of Great Britain and its Making

Investigating the Gough Map of circa 1360. http://www.goughmap.org/

Literary Atlas of Europe

Seemingly defunct, without having produced any maps, but with some interesting articles. http://www.literaturatlas.eu/index_en.html

Locating London’s Past

Just launched, drawing on data from Old Bailey Online and London Lives. Site: http://www.locatinglondon.org Blog: http://locatinglondonspast.wordpress.com/

Map of Early Modern London

Based on Agas’ map from circa 1560. http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/

Mapping A Writer’s World

The geographic chronology of Willa Cather. http://cather.unl.edu/geochron/

Mapping Decline

Fascinating investigation into urban decline in St Louis. http://mappingdecline.lib.uiowa.edu/map/

Mapping Du Bois

Recreating Du Bois’ survey of Philadelphia’s Seventh Ward http://www.mappingdubois.org/

Mapping Gothic France

12th and 13th century French architecture considered in 3 ways: time, space and narrative. http://mappinggothicfrance.org/

Mapping History

Time-based maps covering 4 continents, in English and German. http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/index.html

Mapping Medieval Chester

Completed project exploring space, place and identity in Medieval Chester. http://www.medievalchester.ac.uk/index.html

Mapping Our Anzacs

Mapping Australia’s first world war recruits. http://mappingouranzacs.naa.gov.au/default.aspx

Mapping Performance Culture: Nottingham 1857-1867

Mid-Victorian entertainments in the Midlands: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/mapmoment/

Mapping Petersburg

A project to map the Petersburg Text, starting with Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. http://www.mappingpetersburg.org/

Mapping Population Change in Ireland 1841-1851

Mapping population change during the Great Famine in Ireland: http://ncg.nuim.ie/content/projects/famine/

Mapping Shakespeare’s London

Now live! Graduate project from Kings College London. http://map.shakespeare.kcl.ac.uk/

Mapping The City In Film

Nascent project mapping Liverpool on celluloid. http://www.liv.ac.uk/lsa/cityinfilm/index.html

Mapping The Gulag

An important project, but so far only using static maps. http://www.gulagmaps.org/

Mapping The Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire

Interesting site, but no maps yet. http://www.mjcb.eu/

Mapping The Lakes

Examining literary accounts of the Lake District in Britain, with some excellent theoretical articles. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/mappingthelakes/index.htm

Mapping The Medieval Urban Townscape

Completed in 2005, a study of new Towns of the late 1200s. http://www.qub.ac.uk/urban_mapping/

Mapping The Republic of Letters

Flash-based interface analysing enlightenment correspondence. https://republicofletters.stanford.edu/

New York City Graffiti and Street Art Project

Flickr, mobile phones and Google maps mash-up investigating NYC street art. http://library.lclark.edu/projects/graffiti/index.php?state=about

Nolli Map

Interactive version of Giambattista Nolli’s 1748 map of Rome. http://nolli.uoregon.edu/default.asp

Old Maps Online

Nascent project to build a search portal for old maps online. More importantly, it aims to create ‘best practice’ guidelines for “defining persistent Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to maintain hyperlinks consistently over long periods.” http://www.port.ac.uk/research/gbhgis/abouttheproject/currentactivities/oldmapsonline/

On The Line

Under construction, but fascinating already, a project on how schooling, housing, and civil rights shaped Hartford, Connecticut (USA) and its suburbs. http://ontheline.trincoll.edu/

Pelagios

PELAGIOS stands for ‘Pelagios: Enable Linked Ancient Geodata In Open Systems’ – hooray for recursive acronyms! http://pelagios-project.blogspot.com/

Orbis

The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World http://orbis.stanford.edu/

PhilaPlace

Great site from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania on the city of Philadelphia. http://www.philaplace.org/

Phone Booth

Project underway, repackaging the Charles Booth poverty maps into mobile phone formats. http://jiscphonebooth.wordpress.com/

Pleiades

Repository of historical geographic information about the Greek and Roman World. http://pleiades.stoa.org/

Records of Early English Drama

Mapping the places and patrons of early English theatre. http://link.library.utoronto.ca/reed/

Regnum Francorum Online

Interactive maps of early medieval Europe, 614-840. http://www.francia.ahlfeldt.se/

Salem Witch Trials

An archive of materials, and a very interesting animated map. http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/salem/home.html

Space of Slovenian Literary Culture

Project in the planning stages, examining Slovenian writing, 1780-1940. Has a very useful overview of literary mapping. http://beta.wikiversity.org/wiki/Literatura_in_prostor

Spatial History Project at Stanford

Many projects and articles. http://www.stanford.edu/group/spatialhistory/cgi-bin/site/index.php

Spatial Humanities at the Scholars’ Lab

A community-driven resource for the spatial humanities. http://spatial.scholarslab.org/

The Area Told As A Story

Very interesting PhD research project into the non-use of maps. http://folk.uio.no/oeide/dg/

Tracks in Time

West Yorks Archive Service putting historic tithe maps online. A digitisation project, but notable for the way the maps are displayed, alongside (rather than superimposed) contemporary maps. http://www.tracksintime.wyjs.org.uk/

Valley of the Shadow

Documenting two counties at the time of the American Civil War, with animated battle maps. http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/

Virtual Morgantown

Seemingly dormant project to build a virtual reconstruction of Morgantown, West Virginia, circa 1900. http://virtualmorgantown.org

Vision of Britain

Remarkable compendium of surveys of Britain. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/

Visualizing Early Washington DC

Using GIS to build a virtual reconstruction of pre-1814 Washington DC. http://visualizingdc.com/

Visualizing Emancipation

Visualizing Emancipation organizes documentary evidence about when, where, and how slavery fell apart during the American Civil War. http://dsl.richmond.edu/emancipation/

Visualizing Scriptoria: Mapping Sites of Manuscript Production in Medieval Iceland

Title says it all. Just as well, given there’s no blurb or description whatsoever. http://projects.cdh.ucla.edu/icelandicms/bin/index.html#

Visualizing Urban Geographies

An open source suite of ‘noGIS’ tools. Examples focus upon Edinburgh. http://geo.nls.uk/urbhist/index.html

Visualizing Venice

Recently commenced project examining the history of San Zanipolo in Venice, Italy. http://www.hastac.org/projects/visualizing-venice

Voluntary Hospitals Database

An old database created by the University of Portsmouth, given a new lease of life via the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, with a Google maps interface.  http://www.hospitalsdatabase.lshtm.ac.uk/ See also the IHR blog post for more information.

Voting America

Mapping US elections, 1840 – 2008. http://dsl.richmond.edu/voting/index.html

Walking Ulysses

Annotating Joyce’s Ulysses upon current and contemporary maps of Dublin. http://ulysses.bc.edu/

Last updated 18 May 2012, currently listing 86 projects. This list is in the public domain, and may be scraped and repurposed freely.