This page is a curated list of digital mapping projects, great reads and useful datasets that have informed our attitude to spatial storytelling. We’ve put this together based on featured items from our monthly newsletter and from our own journeys though the GIS and cultural internet.

We’re sharing them here to inform and inspire anyone interesting in spatial storytelling and the use of maps for education. The list isn’t exhaustive, and if you think we’re missing something please do reach out at [email protected].

Happy Mapping!
– The Humap Team

Contents:

• Inspirational digital mapping projects
• Recommended reading
• Data and historical maps

Inspirational digital mapping projects

From mapping the growth of cities and nations to analysing oral traditions and documenting community stories, this list has a little bit of everything.

These projects use a variety of different software: ESRI, Mapbox, Carto, and even some original developments or open source solutions like Omeka and Leaflet.

Historical and cultural projects

• Phersu Atlas: a historical atlas database of world history containing millions of historical timelines and statistics
• imagineRio: watch the history of Rio De Janeiro unfold over time (Rice University & partners)
• Mapping Decline: St. Louis and the American City: a series of interactive maps exploring white flight, race and property, municipal zoning and urban renewal in St. Louis, Missouri  (University of Iowa)
• Mapping Occupation: a map of U.S. Army posts and troop composition following the American Civil War, with analyses of how this impacted the lives of freed and enslaved people, Reconstruction generally, and state relations in the immediate aftermath of the conflict (University of Georgia)
• Populations Past – Atlas of Victorian & Edwardian Population: mapping British populations between 1850-1930 (University of Cambridge)
• The Digital Atlas of European Historiography: Historical GIS on the history of European Historiography since 1800
  (Trier University & partners)
• Macabre London: mapping London’s dark and macabre history… (London Dark Tourist)
• Owned Away From Home: Exploring non-local ownership of U.S. housing  (Alex Alsup & Matthew Klovski for Regrid)
• Viabunudus, an interactive of map of major north European route networks around 1500CE (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen & partners)
• Digital Periegesis: tracing ancient Greek stories (Umeå University)
• The invasion of America: a mapped timeline of the colonisation of the USA (eHistory.org)
• NearbyWiki: see wikipedia articles near you! (Hello Digital World)
• The Key To English Place-Names: an interactive etymological adventure! Click on a placename to see the evolution of the word and its origins (University of Nottingham)
• Oculi Mundi: explore ancient maps of the world on this immersive website (The Sunderland Collection)
• The Poets Map: mapping the lives of poets in the long 18th century (University of Oxford)
• Inventor of Britain: the complete works of Humphrey Llwyd (1527-68), the iconic Welsh cartographer (National Library of Wales)
• Historic England’s Ghost Signs: contribute your own pictures of ghost signs to this collaborative map (Historic England)
• Historic Thaxted: historical maps of Thaxted, Essex (Notre Dame School)
• The 1941 Official Railway Map of Scotland: trace Scotland’s lost railways (National Library of Scotland)
• The Tithe Map of Wales: browse over 300,000 entries from tithe documents created  between 1838 and 1850 (National Library of Wales)
• Queering the Map is a crowdsourced project documenting LGBTQ+ oral histories across the globe. Some may be NSFW! (Lucas LaRochelle)
• Mapping Black London: the stories of Black Londoners, past and present (Northeastern University & partners)
• UK UNESCO sites (UNESCO)

GIS projects

These are a mixture of GIS projects we’ve found interesting and historically relevant but scientific resources, like the Wreck Viewer.

• The Gott Projection: another projection for visualising the globe as flat. Read Gott et al’s paper here (Princeton University)
• The National Risk Index: mapping natural disaster risk in the US (Federal Emergency Management Agency)
• ShadeMap: a global simulation of sun and shade
• The Plant Hardiness Map:  mapping plant hardiness in Spain (PlantMaps)
• The Ireland Historic Environment Viewer (the Irish National Monuments Service)
• The Wreck Viewer: also from the Irish National Monuments service, this portal maps out shipwrecks on Irish waters (Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage)
• The Global Power Plant Explorer: a “deep, visual dive into the planet’s energy heartbeat” (Illustreets)
• Hivemapper: a new way to crowdsource GIS data (BeeMaps)

Recommended reading

Maps present the version of the world the cartographer wants you to see, and as such are full of biases and assumed truths – especially when you’re the one making the map. The pieces linked below are a mixture of academic spatial humanities, ethical cartography, and practical tips for creating maps.

• Anything by Dr Stuart Dunn, Professor of Spatial Humanities at King’s College London
• Avoidance Mapping: What It Is & Where It Fits in the Cartography Cube by Rose Njambi for GeoAwesome
• GIS and the Mapping of Enslaved Movement: The Matrix of Risk by Christy Hyman
• Voices in a contested landscape: community participation and upland management in the North York Moors National Park by Thomas Ratcliffe
• Should this be a map or 500 maps? by Elan Ullendorf for Escape the Algorithm
• The current state of map design in OpenStreetMap by ‘chris’ for Imagico
• Shapefile must die!
• A Creative Placemaking Approach Culture and Creativity as a Tool in Community Wealth Building and Community-Led Place Development from The Stove Network, with support from South of Scotland Enterprise
• Design Patterns For Effective Maps UX
• Using historical maps to research climate change: a handy toolkit from the National Library of Scotland
• Using Fair With Care: a conversation about sharing cultural heritage images as data in South Africa
• Animated map projections (Jason Davies)
• ColorBrewer generates beautiful colour palettes for map projects. Created by Cynthia Brewer, Mark Harrower and The Pennsylvania State University

Data and historical maps 

GIS Data sets

If you’re looking to populate a map with data then this list is a great place to start.

• Awesome Public Datasets
• The Humanitarian Data Exchange
• The Open Data Hub: Historic England’s Spatial Data Hub
• WorldPop: global population data
• OpenStreetMap: community-generated spatial data
• data.gov: Central portal for U.S. federal datasets
• US Census Bureau: TIGER/Line shapefiles for administrative boundaries, roads, and demographic geography
• US Geological Survey: Elevation models, hydrography, land cover, and historical topographic maps.
• Office for National Statistics: Boundary files and statistical geography for England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
• Ordnance Survey OpenData: Open geographic datasets including boundaries, terrain, and place names in the UK.
• INSPIRE Geoportal: Access point for harmonised spatial datasets across EU member states.
• European Environment Agency: Environmental and land-use datasets, often suitable for long-term spatial narratives.
• Harvard Geospatial Library: A collection of historical and contemporary datasets
• NASA Earthdata: satellite imagery and spatial data sets
• Copernicus Open Access Hub: free satellite data from the EU’s Earth observation programme
• Climate Data Online: free contemporary and historical climate data for the US
• Gloucestershire’s Natural Capital (Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership)

Historical map collections

Historical maps are brilliant for adding context to projects, and audiences love them. Below are several historical map collections that allow their content to be used under various copyright licences (please check individual terms before using any).

• Old Maps Online: A new way to discover history
• Stanford EarthWorks: Spatial data and some georeferenced maps
• New York Public Library Map Warper: Access to georeferenced historical maps, ideal for layering past and present geographies.
• David Rumsey Map Collection: historical maps, many georeferenced and available to reuse with attribution
• Georeferenced first edition ordnance survey maps from the National Library of Scotland