Visualising Urban Geographies: Developing New Tools for Integrating Historical Data and Mapping

Project start date: 2009-08

Project end date: 2010-10

Throughout the humanities and social sciences significant volumes of data are held as an address - we often describe things by postcodes - health care, poverty, crime, insurance rates, and so on - meaning that the potential for geographical visualisation is great. Visualising Urban Geographies will release this potential by re-using existing historical research on nineteenth century Edinburgh to develop a web based application that will enable users at all levels to input and manipulate map data without the need for specialist applications or scripting skills. This project aimed to design an accessible tool that will (i) transform learning and teaching possibilities and the research potential of those who wish to map their data as a basis for class projects or research publications but who are currently deterred by need to learn GIS (ii) enrich the historical engagement and spatial awareness of the general public (iii) demonstrate the public benefits of university research in the humanities. The application will use popular, public domain web services such as Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth. In partnership with the National Map Library's unique collection of historical maps, it will build on their existing expertise in making these accessible online, and create new tools by integrating the maps with socio-economic data.