My first experience getting hands-on with georectifying a map was anything but smooth. When we spent time exploring other interactive maps earlier in the week, I wasn’t expecting to get so frustrated by the process of creating such tools. It seemed like a fun exercise to fit an old map onto updated dimensions and add interactive spots along the way. Since struggling with this assignment, I have gained more experience in arcGIS and understand that side of digital map creation a little better than before, but georectifying a map using the David Rumsey Map Collection didn’t go at all how I thought it would.
Above is a screenshot of the final map I was able to create. As you can see, this is a screenshot and not a link, because every time I tried to go to the “This Map” page to share the link to MY map, it just kept generating a link to the original map. The original is a map of Europe in 1819 (published in 1833). I decided to use this map because after trying and failing to successfully georectify maps of the US, India, and Italy, I decided to use the first one that seemed possible. I faced two main challenges along the way once I’d chosen this map:
- Locations have changed since 1819. I found that lots of major cities and peninsulas were in roughly the same position as the modern map, but some had moved around a little, making it difficult to locate them even by searching.
- The 1819 map is blatantly wrong. Obviously lots of discoveries have been made since the early 19th century, but for instance, Greece apparently doesn’t exist and Turkey is much smaller and further West than it should be. There’s a chance I just don’t know my history well enough and there are explicit reasons for these things, but for my experience overlaying the maps, it made the task of pinpointing an array of locations more challenging than I’d hoped for. It also led to more “Errors” in my coordinates because I was matching up locations that were drawn out as much closer together/further apart than they should have been.
All in all, this was definitely a struggle, but I really appreciated getting to look at other examples of interactive maps and brainstorming what possibilities such tools might hold. The most memorable map I remember exploring was one of the Middle Passage and triangular trade routes through the Atlantic. The map visualized where African slaves were dying on their involuntary journeys overseas, and let users look into these data points in more detail. A problem that needs to be considered when creating these maps are that locations may not be 100% accurate if they are based on historical record.
3 thoughts on “An Attempt at Georeferencing”
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Sorry it was such a challenge, Jackson! I also had some similar problems, especially with the map sharing – none of my changes were saved on the website, which was a headache. Still, the screenshot does look great! I also think you’ve put your finger on the issues with georeferencing in general – we are trying to force older understandings of the world onto our current one, which is always going to be impossible, in my opinion.
Hi Jackson, I’m sorry you had such a rough time with this assignment. I was also deceived a little bit by how simple the assignment sounded at first, then found myself struggling with the website and specifically, finding a good map. I definitely agree with your last point, that the old maps may not be 100% accurate if they are based on historical records. Personally, I haven’t thought of a way around the maps not perfectly matching but I’d love to hear if you have any ideas!
Echoing everyone else’s thoughts, this assignment was a little tricky. Even when done right, a lot of these maps do not looks correct at all, because as you said, many new discoveries and better data has surfaced since they have been drawn. With that said, how wonky a lot of these maps ended up definitely gives me an appreciation for modern maps taken from the air!