Here is my map.
Did this process change your understanding of the spatial DH projects you explored earlier?
The process of selecting control points on both the historical and modern maps, rectifying the distortions etc. made me appreciate the complexities of historical geography and how urban landscapes evolve. This experience shifted my understanding of digital spatial humanities projects: before, I mostly saw them as tools for visualization, but now I recognize them as crucial for historical analysis, urban planning studies, and even environmental tracking. Rectifying a map makes historical geographies more accessible and usable.
Examine the This Map page: what formats can you access the map you rectified in?
On the “This Map” page, I found multiple export formats, including GeoTIFF, IIIF, adit could be used in GIS apps. The availability of different formats allows for various use cases, especially the web tiles can be quite useful for embedding maps into digital projects.
What possibilities do you see once you have a georectified map? What would be next steps?
Once a map is georectified, it opens up many possibilities that people did not even consider before. For example, researchers can overlay datasets like census records, historical events, or environmental changes onto the same spatial framework. I believe a logical next step would be to integrate multiple rectified maps over time to track changes in land use or population growth. A study targeted on a single variable can often reflect on some aspects of the historical changes behind.
Are there problems with georeferencing that you should consider?
Sometimes, historical maps are distorted due to inaccuracies in early surveying techniques. Moreover, political biases in historical cartography—such as omitted or exaggerated features—can complicate analysis. We should be careful with these features when we are interpreting a map like that.
What research questions or areas would this method NOT be appropriate for?
Research questions that require precise measurements (such as exact property boundaries for legal disputes) may find historical maps too imprecise. Likewise, studies involving abstract spatial concepts (like descriptive mapping or indigenous land use that wasn’t recorded with Cartesian coordinates) may not benefit from this approach.
