Using Historical Maps in GIS

Course Details

This course is for people who want to explore and analyse maps that are themselves historical, or other images such as aerial photography, and use them within Geographical Information Systems software.

The first short course in Historical Mapping focuses upon working with historic maps as sources, and the skills and tools needed to work with them digitally. The day begins with a seminar exploration of the history of cartography, including discussions of both the technical developments in cartographic techniques (and their implications) and of critical source analysis of maps.

The second part of the day explores the techniques needed to work with maps as historical sources within GIS software. As well as exploring online sources for ready digitised historic maps, you will learn how to geo-reference, and geo-rectify (warp) scanned historical maps within both ArcGIS and QGIS. We will also consider alternative ways of extracting information from historical maps, and the analytical potential of using them in conjunction with other GIS data sources and techniques.

Before attending this course, you should already be familiar with the basic concepts of GIS and cartography (i.e. attending ‘Simple Map Making for History and Humanities’ or have equivalent experience). 

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Please note that this course will be taking place in-person only, and that the number of places available is limited.

In order to provide an interactive, dynamic short course experience the IHR requires a minimum number of delegates to run the short course.

If a course is cancelled due to low enrolment, delegates will be offered the option of a refund or a transfer on to the same course at a later date.