We learned about spatial mapping this week in class. I enjoyed the process, but I found the site itself to be a bit slow and buggy, which made the experience a bit frustrating at times. I chose the following map to georectify:
https://davidrumsey.georeferencer.com/maps/fc2d4f3f-c603-5166-8fa9-813eddfeca7a/georeference
It’s really interesting to see the way maps were represented before while comparing them with the way we know places today. I think that before we weren’t able to get this kind of information, especially thinking about how this map allows us to view historical geographies, which gives us the opportunity to learn something more about the way spaces were organized/called and perhaps the communities that lived there.
The Map that I chose is a map of North America from 1804. It can be viewed as an image or a JSON file (it’s probably more helpful to view this map in the image format, though). The software does a pretty good job during the overlay; the details of the older map seem to match up pretty well with the software’s map.
I think georectification could be really interesting for historical projects that revolve around a very specific location. While 2D maps by themselves are helpful, using a georectified map could give the audience a greater sense about where historical buildings and events were located, the distances to scale in a town, and other specific points of interest on a map. Digital Humanists could also add more historical information to the map to give them more context about a geographic space and the communities that lived there.
I think georeferencing is a really cool process, but it definitely won’t work with every digital humanities project. Firstly, you’ll need a good amount of map data in order to make this project successful and interesting. Some historical events/places have not been recorded using maps/ have not been recorded at all, which would obviously make georeferencing impossible.
