OpenHistoricalMap explained

OpenHistoricalMap
Products:Geographic data
Commercial:No
Type:Collaborative mapping
Registration:Required for contributors, not required for viewing
Content License:Various
Owner:Community-owned
supported by OpenStreetMap U.S.[1]
Launch Date:[2]
Current Status:Active

OpenHistoricalMap (also spelled Open Historical Map and abbreviated OHM) is an online collaborative mapping project developing a historical map of the world using OpenStreetMap technology and processes.[3] [4] Whereas OpenStreetMap only includes data about the present day and deletes data as it becomes outdated, OpenHistoricalMap welcomes historical data and preserves multiple copies of a feature as it changes over time.[5] [6] The OpenStreetMap community views OpenHistoricalMap as an outlet for keeping outdated names out of OpenStreetMap, where they could cause misunderstanding.[7]

History

The domain name OpenHistoricalMap.org was purchased in 2009[8] and in 2013 started an initial fork of the OpenStreetMap website software there.[9]

The similarly named OpenHistoryMap project started in 2015 to share archaeological and historical data with an open access model. However, it has a peer review process,[10] which is distinct from the OpenHistoricalMap and OpenStreetMap projects' crowdsourcing focus on free volunteered geographic information.

In 2016, OpenHistoricalMap suffered a hard disk drive failure but managed to recover most data from a contributor's backup. Since 2017, Oakland, California–based GreenInfo Network and Washington, D.C.–based Development Seed have developed and maintained the project's technical infrastructure.[11] [12] In 2018, longtime host Topomancy shut down and transferred ownership of the OpenHistoricalMap domain to the Wikiwar Heritage Council.[13]

In 2020, OpenHistoricalMap introduced a "time slider" that allows users to interactively filter map data by time period. This feature is credited with spurring the project's growth. In May 2021, OpenHistoricalMap became a charter project of OpenStreetMap U.S., a nonprofit local chapter of the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

Participation

OpenHistoricalMap allows anyone with a free account to contribute directly to the map through an editor such as the iD Web application or the JOSM desktop application. Contributors can georeference out-of-copyright maps and trace features from them.[14] They can contribute data individually or as part of guided mapathons.

The software that powers the OpenHistoricalMap website is maintained on GitHub as a collection of open-source projects. Many of these projects, such as the iD editor, are forks of OpenStreetMap software projects that have been adapted to a data model with a time dimension.

Contents

The OpenHistoricalMap community has organized projects to map certain historical periods and themes in detail. Major contributions have included:

Individual mappers have also contributed data on the gentrification in the Cheonggyecheon and Dongdaemun areas of Seoul[19] and former infrastructure related to Erie Canal and Harmony Mills in New York.[20] Mappers georeference old maps on platforms such as OldInsuranceMaps.net in order to complete the basemap.[21]

OpenHistoricalMap focuses on historical objects but does not collect data on historical events per se.[22]

Data model

OpenHistoricalMap has a data model largely identical to that of OpenStreetMap, including the consolidation of all data into a single layer. However, OpenHistoricalMap's addition of a time dimension makes the data more complex.[23] The tags for indicating a feature's start and end dates are much more important. There are multiple approaches to representing a real-world place or object that changes over time. It can be represented by multiple features in the database, each corresponding to different start and end dates. Alternatively, individual tags can be qualified by start and end dates, and more complex approaches involving relations have been proposed. Dates are formatted according to ISO 8601 or EDTF.

Coverage

The OpenHistoricalMap project started from scratch with an empty database. As of October 2021, OpenHistoricalMap's coverage was characterized as "very sparse" with few buildings mapped.[24] As of 2024, a triplestore representation of OpenHistoricalMap was comparable in size to an extract of OpenStreetMap data in Finland but had many more points than polygons, and of the polygons, many were similarly shaped.[25] OpenHistoricalMap's coverage includes multiple copies of an object as it changes over time.

Usage

On the main project website, a map consisting of vector tiles visualizes the historical data interactively in several styles, including a functional Historical style and an artistic Woodblock style. A slider allows visitors to filter the map data to a point in time from 4001 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar to the present day.[26] When a feature is selected, content from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons is displayed in a sidebar based on the tagged Wikipedia article title or Wikidata item identifier. A custom instance of the Nominatim search engine returns search results across time periods.

OpenHistoricalMap data is available for reuse in other projects. In addition to the REST API, a weekly database dump allows bulk downloads in Protocol Buffers–encoded OSM XML format. There is also an instance of the Overpass API for structured querying of the data across time periods. These tools are configured and deployed as part of the reusable osm-seed package.

Ecologists have used OpenHistoricalMap data to track the change of geological features over time such as the path of rivers.[27] Gramps Web uses an OpenHistoricalMap basemap to place genealogical data in a historical context.[28]

Licensing terms

Individual features within the OpenHistoricalMap database are licensed independently. The project prefers that new contributions be dedicated to the public domain through a CC0 dedication.[29] However, a fraction of tagged elements have been contributed under other licenses, most commonly the Open Database License (used by OpenStreetMap) and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike.[30]

The software that powers the OpenHistoricalMap website is available under the GNU General Public License.[31]

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. OpenHistoricalMap Welcomed As An OSM US Charter Project. Maggie. Cawley. OpenStreetMap U.S.. May 26, 2021. February 13, 2022.
  2. OpenHistoricalMap - Historical Geography Wiki Style. Richard. Welty. WikiConference North America 2021. October 8, 2021. 6. February 13, 2022. SlideShare.
  3. R. Ferreira . Karine . Ferla . Luis . R. de Queiroz . Gilberto . L. Vijaykumar . Nandamudi . A. Noronha . Carlos . M. Mariano . Rodrigo . Taveira . Denis . Sansigolo . Gabriel . Guarnieri . Orlando . Rogers . Thomas . Lesser . Jeffrey . Page . Michael . Atique . Fernando . Musa . Daniela . Y. Santos . Janaina . S. Morais . Diego . R. Miyasaka . Cristiane . R. de Almeida . Cintia . G. M. do Nascimento . Luanna . A. Diniz . Jaine . C. dos Santos . Monaliza . A Platform for Collaborative Historical Research based on Volunteered Geographical Information . Journal of Information and Data Management . Sociedade Brasileira de Computacao - SB . 9 . 3 . 2018-12-30 . 2178-7107 . 10.5753/jidm.2018.2046 . 293 . Two examples of OSM applications that focus on historical data sets are HistOSM1 and OpenHistorical ... OpenHistoricalMap is an effort to use the OSM infrastructure as a foundation for creating a universal, detailed, and historical map of the world..
  4. Cox . Adam . Toward a Georeferencing Commons: A Crowdsourcing Case Study and the Creation of OldInsuranceMaps.net . Journal of Map & Geography Libraries . 19 . 3 . 2023-09-02 . 1542-0353 . 10.1080/15420353.2024.2326812 . 160–184 . OHM is a fork of OpenStreetMap where contributors map historical features.. subscription .
  5. PATRIMÔNIO DE CÓDIGO ABERTO: tensionando informação, participação e tecnologia. Mariana Kimie da Silva. Nito. Sandra Schmitt. Soster. Revista FÓRUM PATRIMÔNIO: Ambiente Construído e Patrimônio Sustentável. Federal University of Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte. 11. 1. June 28, 2020. 15. pt-BR.
  6. From QGIS to Python: comparison of free and open tools for statistical analysis of cultural heritage and data representation. Dina. Jovanović. Gottingen. The International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Copernicus Publications. 48. 4. 2022. 234. 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLVIII-4-W1-2022-229-2022 . 2022ISPAr48W1..229J . free . 11311/1220174. free.
  7. News: 共享地圖OpenStreetMap爆改地名大戰 山友憂慮增加意外. The shared map OpenStreetMap is overrun with changed place names, climbers worry about increase in accidents. Yan Minghui. HK01. April 20, 2022. April 20, 2022. Traditional Chinese.
  8. Web site: Whois search results for openhistoricalmap.org. Amazon Registrar. Seattle. September 6, 2023.
  9. A Brief Technical History of Open Historical Map. Sanjay. Bhangar. April 2, 2022. OpenStreetMap U.S.. Tucson, Arizona. State of the Map U.S..
  10. Open History Map. Silvia. Bernardoni. Marco. Montanari. Raffaele. Trojanis. Archaeologia e Calcolatori. Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale. 2017. 28. 2. 539–548. 10.19282/AC.28.2.2017.44.
  11. Web site: An Open Data Map of World History. GreenInfo Network. Oakland, California. February 13, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20210422011012/https://www.greeninfo.org/work/project/openhistoricalmap. 2021-04-22.
  12. Open Historical Map: Vector Tiles & Other Updates. Jeff. Meyer. State of the Map U.S. 2019. September 8, 2019. 4. February 13, 2022.
  13. News regarding OpenHistoricalMap. Rob H.. Warren. historic. May 23, 2018. April 14, 2022.
  14. Koncept neokartografie ve studiu starých map. Daniel. Vrbík. PhD. Masaryk University. Brno. 2018. 55. Czech.
  15. Web site: Home Atlas of Historical County Boundaries Project . 2023-03-03 . digital.newberry.org.
  16. Web site: Mapping the Tawantinsuyo in OpenHistoricalMap. Juan. Arellano. Cyberjuan. July 2, 2021. April 14, 2022. Medium.
  17. Transformation of the Jewish Space in Kolín, 1848–1921. Daniel. Baránek. Judaica Bohemiae. Jewish Museum in Prague. Prague. 57. 1. 2022. 67.
  18. Web site: The Geometries of Vimy Ridge, 100 years ago. Robert. Warren. The Muninn Project. April 7, 2017. February 18, 2023.
  19. Web site: Cheonggyecheon, Dongdaemun Gentrification: Technical Notes. E Roon. Kang. Wonyoung. So. Seoul Libre Maps. August 29, 2017. Medium.
  20. Life Cycle in OpenHistoricalMap. Richard. Welty. State of the Map U.S. 2022. Tucson, Arizona. OpenStreetMap U.S.. April 1, 2022.
  21. Toward a Georeferencing Commons: A Crowdsourcing Case Study and the Creation of OldInsuranceMaps.net. Adam. Cox. Journal of Map & Geography Libraries. 19. 3. 2023. 160–184. 10.1080/15420353.2024.2326812. subscription.
  22. VGI protocol and Web service for historical data management. Rodrigo Monteiro. Mariano. Master's. National Institute for Space Research. São José dos Campos. March 11, 2019. 23–25.
  23. Evolution of the OSM Data Model. Jochen. Topf. OpenStreetMap Foundation. Cambridge. 15 August 2022. 21.
  24. Software and Content Design of a Browser-based Mobile 4D VR Application to Explore Historical City Architecture. Sander. Muenster. Jonas. Bruschke. Ferdinand. Maiwald. Constantin. Kleiner. Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Structuring and Understanding of Multimedia heritAge Contents. Association for Computing Machinery. New York City. October 30, 2021. 13–22. 10.1145/3475720.3484442. 9781450386685 . subscription.
  25. Web site: Efficient Spatial Joins for Large Sets of Geometric Objects. Hannah. Bast. w:Hannah Bast. Patrick. Brosi. Johannes. Kalmbach. Axel. Lehmann. University of Freiburg Chair for Algorithms and Data Structures. Freiburg im Breisgau. June 9, 2024.
  26. Web site: Set new min date on timeslider. Dan. Rademacher. OpenHistoricalMap/issues. June 17, 2020. February 13, 2022. GitHub.
  27. Book: Travis . Charles . Routledge Handbook of the Digital Environmental Humanities . Dixon . Deborah P. . Deborah Dixon . Bergmann . Luke . Legg . Robert . Crampsie . Arlene . September 12, 2022 . Taylor & Francis . 978-1-000-63584-3 . 594 . en.
  28. Web site: The new OpenHistoricalMap integration in Gramps Web. David. Straub. Grampshub. Munich. August 3, 2024. August 24, 2024.
  29. Web site: Open Historical Map/OHM Basics. OpenStreetMap Wiki. September 3, 2021.
  30. Web site: license. OpenHistoricalMap Taginfo. July 25, 2022.
  31. Web site: LICENSE at staging. OpenHistoricalMap/ohm-website. GitHub. February 13, 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220213105745/https://github.com/OpenHistoricalMap/ohm-website/blob/staging/LICENSE. February 13, 2022. bot: unknown.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "OpenHistoricalMap".

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