Mapping and georeferencing is closely related to data visualization, but is dedicated to data that has a spatial component. This guide is not intended to cover the breadth of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or the kinds of analyses that can be done with those platforms. It is intended to provide basic, "getting started" tools for non-Geography students and faculty who are interested in adding basic mapping methods to their research toolbox.
See the data visualization section in this guide for more general information... and before diving into map creation, be sure to check out our Data & Statistics guide and our Maps & Atlases guide for information understanding maps and finding sources for data.
As with other areas of this guide, our focus here is on free or inexpensive, accessible tools for those interested in working with maps and spatial data.
Jump to: General Mapping Tools | Story Maps | Geocoding Tools | Georeferencing Tools
Related techniques: Data Visualization
This technique is part of the following activities: Enrichment & Annotation, Creation, and Dissemination
Cultural Mapping and the Digital Sphere
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"Notwithstanding their differing approaches--digital, archival, historical, iterative, critical, creative, reflective--the essays gathered here articulate new ways of seeing, investigating, and apprehending literature and culture." - From the PrefaceThis collection of essays enriches digital humanities research by examining various Canadian cultural works and the advances in technologies that facilitate these interdisciplinary collaborations. Fourteen essays--eleven in English and three in French--survey the helix of place and space. Contributors to Part I chart new archival and storytelling methodologies, while those in Part II venture forth to explore specific cultural and literary texts. Cultural Mapping and the Digital Sphere will serve as an indispensable road map for researchers and those interested in the digital humanities, women's writing, and Canadian culture and literature.Contributors: Jeffery Antoniuk, Susan Brown, Constance Crompton, Ravit H. David, Patricia Demers, Shawn DeSouza-Coelho, Cecily Devereux, Teresa M. Dobson, Sandra Gabriele, Isobel Grundy, Andrea Hasenbank, Paul Hjartarson, Kathleen Kellett, Sasha Kovacs, Vanessa Lent, Margaret Mackey, Breanna Mroczek, Bethany Nowviskie, Ruth Panofsky, Mariana Paredes-Olea, Harvey Quamen, Jennifer Roberts-Smith, Omar Rodriguez-Arenas, Mary-Jo Romaniuk, Stan Ruecker, Lori Saint-Martin, Michelle Schwartz, Stéfan Sinclair, Mireille Mai Truong, Stéphanie Walsh Matthews, Heather Zwicker.
A History of Place in the Digital Age
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A History of Place in the Digital Age explores the history and impact of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and related digital mapping technologies in humanities research. Providing a historical and methodological discussion of place in the most important primary materials which make up the human record, including text and artefacts, the book explains how these materials frame, form and communicate location in the age of the internet. This leads in to a discussion of how the World Wide Web distorts and skews place, amplifying some voices and reducing others.　　 Drawing on several connected case studies from the early modern period to the present day, the spatial writings of early modern antiquarians are explored, as are the roots of approaches to place in archaeology and philosophy. This forms the basis for a review of place online, through the complex history of the invention of the internet, in to the age of the interactive web and social media. By doing so, the book explores the key themes of spatial power and representation which these technologies frame. A History of Place in the Digital Age will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners in a variety of humanities disciplines with an interest in understanding how technology can help them undertake research on spatial themes. It will be of interest as primary work to historians of technology, media and communications.
HyperCities: Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities
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The prefix “hyper” refers to multiplicity and abundance. More than a physical space, a hypercity is a real city overlaid with information networks that document the past, catalyze the present, and project future possibilities. Hypercities are always under construction.
Not merely a book about maps in the literal sense, Hypercities puts digital humanities theory into practice to chart the proliferating cultural records of places around the world. A digital platform transmogrified into a book, it explains the ambitious online project of the same name that maps the historical layers of city spaces in an interactive, hypermedia environment. The authors examine the media archaeology of Google Earth and the cultural–historical meaning of map projections, and explore recent events—the “Arab Spring” and the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster—through social media mapping that incorporates data visualizations, photographic documents, and Twitter streams. A collaboratively authored and designed work, HyperCities includes a “ghost map” of downtown Los Angeles, polyvocal memory maps of LA’s historic Filipinotown, avatar-based explorations of ancient Rome, and hour-by-hour mappings of the Tehran election protests of 2009.
Learning QGIS
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Learn how to work with various data and create beautiful maps using this easy-to-follow guide. Give a touch of professionalism to your maps both for functionality and look and feel with the help of this practical guide. A progressive hands-on guide that builds on a geospatial data and adds more reactive maps by using geometry tools.
Mapping Landscapes in Transformation
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The development of historical geographical information systems (HGIS) and other methods from the digital humanities have revolutionised historical research on cultural landscapes. One of today's major challenges, however, concerns the concepts and tools to be deployed for mapping processes of transformation--that is, interpreting and imagining the relational complexity of urban and rural landscapes, both in space and in time, at micro- and macro-scale. The opening up of increasingly diverse collections of source material, often incomplete and difficult to interpret, has led to methodologically innovative experiments. Mapping Landscapes in Transformation gathers experts from different disciplines, active in the fields of historical geography, urban and landscape history, and heritage conservation. They are specialised in a wide variety of space-time contexts, including regions within Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and periods from antiquity to the 21st century. Contributors: Karl Beelen (Karlsruhe IT), John Bintliff (Leiden University / Edinburgh University), Bieke Cattoor (TU Delft), Jill Desimini (Harvard University), Cecilia Furlan (TU Delft / KU Leuven), Ian Gregory and Christopher Donaldson (Lancaster University), Joanna Taylor (University of Manchester), Piraye Hacigüzeller, Frank Vermeulen and Devi Taelman (Ghent University), Ralf Vandam and Jeroen Poblome (KU Leuven), Reinout Klaarenbeek (KU Leuven), Sanne Maekelberg (KU Leuven), Steffen Nijhuis (TU Delft), Cristina Purcar (TU Cluj-Napoca), Changxue Shu (KU Leuven, FWO), Bram Vannieuwenhuyze (University of Amsterdam), May Yuan and Arloo McKee (University of Texas, Dallas) Ebook available in Open Access. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer Review Content).
Mastering QGIS
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Go beyond the basics and unleash the full power of QGIS with practical, step-by-step examplesAbout This Book- This book is your one-stop solution to all of your GIS needs using the open source QGIS- Master QGIS by learning about database integration, geoprocessing tools, Python scripts, advanced cartography, and custom plugins- This example-rich, practical guide will help you create sophisticated analyses and mapsWho This Book Is ForIf you are a GIS professional, a consultant, a student, or perhaps a fast learner who wants to go beyond the basics of QGIS, then this book is for you. It will prepare you to realize the full potential of QGIS.What You Will Learn- Create and manage a spatial database- Get to know advanced techniques to style GIS data- Prepare both vector and raster data for processing- Add heat maps, live layer effects, and labels to your maps- Master LAStools and GRASS integration with the Processing Toolbox- Edit and repair topological data errors- Automate workflows with batch processing and the QGIS Graphical Modeler- Integrate Python scripting into your data processing workflows- Develop your own QGIS pluginIn DetailQGIS is an open source solution to GIS. It is widely used by GIS professionals all over the world. It is the leading alternative to the proprietary GIS software. Although QGIS is described as intuitive, it is also by default complex. Knowing which tools to use and how to apply them is essential to producing valuable deliverables on time.Starting with a refresher on the QGIS basics, this book will take you all the way through to creating your first custom QGIS plugin. From the refresher, we will recap how to create, populate, and manage a spatial database. You'll also walk through styling GIS data, from creating custom symbols and color ramps to using blending modes. In the next section, you will discover how to prepare vector, heat maps, and create live layer effects, labeling, and raster data for processing. You'll also discover advanced data creation and editing techniques.The last third of the book covers the more technical aspects of QGIS such as using LAStools and GRASS GIS's integration with the Processing Toolbox, how to automate workflows with batch processing, and how to create graphical models. Finally, you will see how to create and run Python data processing scripts and write your own QGIS plugin with pyqgis.By the end of the book, you will understand how to work with all the aspects of QGIS, and will be ready to use it for any type of GIS work.Style and approachThis step-by-step comprehensive guide will let you dig your teeth into working with spatial databases, creating your own QGIS plugins, and creating your own custom graphical models.
New Lines: Critical GIS and the Trouble of the Map
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New Lines takes the pulse of a society increasingly drawn to the power of the digital map, examining the conceptual and technical developments of the field of geographic information science as this work is refracted through a pervasive digital culture. Matthew W. Wilson draws together archival research on the birth of the digital map with a reconsideration of the critical turn in mapping and cartographic thought. Seeking to bridge a foundational divide within the discipline of geography--between cultural and human geographers and practitioners of Geographic Information Systems (GIS)--Wilson suggests that GIS practitioners may operate within a critical vacuum and may not fully contend with their placement within broader networks, the politics of mapping, the rise of the digital humanities, the activist possibilities of appropriating GIS technologies, and more.Employing the concept of the drawn and traced line, Wilson treads the theoretical terrain of Deleuze, Guattari, and Gunnar Olsson while grounding their thoughts with the hybrid impulse of the more-than-human thought of Donna Haraway. What results is a series of interventions--fractures in the lines directing everyday life--that provide the reader with an opportunity to consider the renewed urgency of forceful geographic representation. These five fractures are criticality, digitality, movement, attention, and quantification. New Lines examines their traces to find their potential and their necessity in the face of our frenetic digital life.
Geocoding is the process of turning basic information about a location (e.g. a place name or an address) into longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates that can be used to plot those locations on a map. The tools below can assist with this work.
free | input: address data | maximum of 2500 entries
free | input: addresses, postal codes, intersections in the USA and Canada | maximum of 2500 entries per day
free | input: address data | code 1 entry at a time
paid service - $0.004US per entry, minimum $10 order | input: addresses
free, but app keys for Mapquest/Bing/Google required | web-based | input: addresses
Tutorial; QGIS is free and open source | input: place names
Georeferencing is the process of taking existing image data (such as a scanned map, airphoto, or blueprints) and "anchoring" it in space by pinning it to specific geographical coordinates. Sometimes an image must be "warped" or reshaped to align it properly with latitudinal and longitudinal information. To do this work, you might try the tools below.
free | web-based | tutorial available
Tutorial; QGIS is free and open source | web-based | easy to learn
Tutorial; ArcGIS license required
free | web-based | easy to learn
free | web-based, Windows, Mac, Linux | slight learning curve
free version allows 5 maps; paid version available with many more features | web-based | easy to learn
free for 12 months; then expensive | web-based | learning curve; more of a full GIS than a basic mapping application
free, crowdsourced | web-based | creating maps requires software skills
free tier for basic features | web-based | moderate learning curve
free | web-based | easy to use
free (ad-supported) | web-based | easy to use
free for basic use; subscriptions available | web-based | easy to learn
free | web-based | easy to learn
free | web-based | easy to learn
