vHistory

Spatial History

Resources

Usage Guides

I use the guides with my students to help them navigate ArcGIS Online. They are intended but be short, sweet and to the point.

General Resources

There are a variety of technologies that can be useful for geospatial historical use. The write-ups below a very basic but could be useful for people consider looking into using GIS in the history classroom. The ones I am familiar with are below:

ArcGIS (ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro)

Perhaps the best known GIS products, the Arc products from ESRI are crazy powerful and equally difficult to use. It is also quite expensive, though many educational institutions already have a site license for it. ArcMap is the older product that has been superseded by ArcGIS Pro, though many people still use ArcMap as their primary software. 

ArcGIS Online

Technically part of the ESRI suite of software, this web-based version provides an easier to use tool that may meet many peoples needs with a lower learning curve. Even better, it provides an easy way to share the maps with people who do not have the software installed on their computers. With an organizational account students can have their own login and create their own content. Without a login students can still see and interact with data provided by a teacher, and is perhaps the single easiest way to bring GIS into the classroom. Storymaps is a layer above this that can provide a guided tour of the relevant aspects of the data. 

QGIS (Quantum GIS)

This is a free and open source GIS system that is wonderful in that it is completely free and works on Windows, Mac and Linux systems. ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro only work on Windows. ArcGIS Online is web based and as such works on pretty much anything. QGIS is in most respects as powerful as ArcMap, it has the same equally daunting learning curve. I am using this more and more as I try to transition to an open-source GIS stack.

Geonode

This is a complex set of server side software that allows for the “easy” display of maps online. It is not nearly as full featured as ArcGIS Online, but on the other hand it is free and open-source. I would highly recommend having a competent sysadmin set this up, I am fairly good with Linux based computers and I was still unable to get this to a functional place without help. I ran this for some time on a Digital Ocean droplet, but the performance was poor and I eventually turned it off as I didn’t feel competent to maintain it. There are some hosted solutions available that might solve many of these issues.

World History Maps

Inca Trade and Landform

This map was mainly created as a experiment to see it is was possible to develop a map that add something in 3d. The link above is 2D and is more usable, but there is also a flashier 3D version. This is currently a dataset in search of an activity to go with it, but student had an good amount of time just playing with it. Keep in mind that this is very much straining the limits of what can currently be done in a web browser, so performance is sometimes disappointing.

Partition of Palestine

This map has a recreation of the administrative districts of the British mandate in Palestine as well as village and district level data based on the 1945 village survey. Also included in the UN partition plan as well as the final borders resulting from the 1949 war. The ArcGIS version of this data is currently more complete while I attempt to refactor this into my GeoNode server.

US History Maps

John Smith “Generall Historie” Map

This map is an “original” creation by myself using images and text from John Smiths “The generall historie of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles” accessed from the Library of Congress. It contains:

  1. Text on the natural world is included in the icons for trees or hills. The images for these trees and hills were taken from the original map, but the location does not represent anything specific in this map. 
  2. The Native American houses represent the “Kings Howses” or significant villages as mapped by Smith. An attempt has been made to place these as close as to their actual location as possible, but the accuracy of this is going to be highly variable. There are two types here, each indicated with a different icon:
    1. Text regarding Native Americans in a specific location is included with the relevant location on the map. This is indicated with a house with the “front” on the left. 
    2. Text regarding Native Americans with no clear geographic component is included in the villages that were not mentioned in a substantial way in the text. These villages themselves were positioned as accurately as possible as based on the map. This is indicated with a house with the “front” to the right. 
  3. This is presented in three layers as an experiment using different webmapping options.

Map Remixes

These maps were largely designed by other people, but have been edited or otherwise “remixed” by myself.

Neolithic Sites Map

This map was developed by projecting a set of neolithic sites color coded by their carbon-14 age. It is nice, simple and give a good overview with how this date is great as a visualization tool.

US Expansion

This map is edited by myself using data from multiple sources. It shows us territorial expansion, population growth and Native American land loss. The material is time enabled so you can watch the US population grow at the same time as one of the other two data points. 

External Sites

These are websites from other people and organizations that I find useful.

  • National Historical GIS: This site has amazing access to GIS datasets (shapefiles last I checked) and census data for all US census years. It is one of the most useful sites for mapping US history that I have found. I have a tutorial for how to use the site and manage the data from it, but it has not been updated in quite some time and there have been substantial changes in the meantime. https://www.nhgis.org
  • Natural Earth: This site has an excellent set of public domain data for basic geography features including coastlines, administrative divisions and the like. It is not historically focused, but nonetheless provides a good starting point for mapping. http://www.naturalearthdata.com