Open Data of the past Open History Map (https://www.openhistorymap.org) is a non-profit based in Bologna, Italy, aiming at the creation of an open map of the past, reconciling and interconnecting data from Digital Humanities, Public History and Digital Archaeology sources. The presentation will cover the philosophy, the technology and the libraries used in this endeavor, explaining how users can reuse, and integrate the data from the platform into their applications or visualizations.

1. OpenHistoryMap
https://www.openhistorymap.org
https://map.openhistorymap.org

2. OpenHistoryMap – The Association
Aim: The creation of a toolchain and toolset to teach
history with modern Web-GIS tools.
Secondary aims: Create a series of tools to facilitate the work for
the people who create the data (researchers, archaeologists, historians)

3. Intro

4. Intro
• Representation of history
• Problems with detail
• Problems with depth of
analysis
• Problems with vicinity
• Problems with structure
• Problems with technology
• Diachronic historical
research was invented by
Thomas Jefferson for the
analysis of native
americans

5. Two orders of problems

6. Back then, that
was all
countryside…

7. 1588, Braun and
Hogenberg, Civitates
Orbis Terrarum, map
IV-49

8. State of the Art

9. Wikipedia
• Scans
• Thematic maps
• Political maps
• Strange projections
• Customized designs
• Not unifom
• Not translateable
William Robert Shepherd - Source: This image is a copy or a derivative work of british_isles_802.jpg, from the map
collection of the Perry–Castañeda Library (PCL) of the University of Texas at Austin. This tag does not indicate the
copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more
information. Originale: Shepherd, William R. (1926) Historical Atlas, Category:New York: Henry Holt and Company

10. Wikidata
ID
Wikidata
• Point data
• Often marginal
• Various representations of
concepts
• Not always coherent

11. Academia
Data precision
Analysis Area
breadth
Analysis
period
breadth

12. 1588, Braun and
Hogenberg, Civitates
Orbis Terrarum, map
IV-49

13. 1835, Catasto Gregoriano, Vaticano

14. Information Architecture

15. OHM Objects
• Every object
• Category
• Name
• Wikidata Ref.
• Valid from Date
• Valid to Date
• Source(name, reference, id,
doi, link)
• Other specific tags
• Geometries
Similarly to OSM we map
phisical objects, dissimilarly
we map also concepts
(battles, troops, legions,
ships, people) in order to give
a historical and spatial
context.

16. Data reliability
• Reliability
• Primary Source
• Dig
• Field research
• Secondary Source
• Reliable historic source
• Review research
• Tertiary Source
• Oral tradition
• Fonte storica poco affidabile
The same object can be
described by different
sources in different ways

17. Data reliability
• Reliability
• Primary Source
• Dig
• Field research
• Secondary Source
• Reliable historic source
• Review research
• Tertiary Source
• Oral tradition
• Fonte storica poco affidabile
Non-academic education
Academia, bibliographies

18. Software architecture

19. Totally open source Platform
• Code on GitHub - https://github.com/openhistorymap
• Python, TypeScript
• Images on DockerHub -
https://hub.docker.com/orgs/openhistorymap
• docker-compose installable on docker-swarm infrastructure
• Code under BSD
• Data under CC-0 license (which is CC-BY-0 for source analysis
purposes.)

21. DB
The database contains information
considering all levels of detail for the
geometries:
Low zoom levels will use low detail
polygons while high zoom levels
have higher detail polygons
Based on layer, information density
(ohm_to), geometry type and zoom
level the initialization prepares the
partitioning configuration of
postgres autonomously.
id
ohm_from
ohm_to
layer
Properties
Author
hash
Item
Hash
minzoom
zoom
Geom
Geom_type
geometries

22. -8000 -7000 -6000 -5000 -4000 -3000 -2000 -1000 0 1000 2000
-8000 -7000 -6000 -5000 -4000 -3000 -2000 -1000 0 1000 2000
-8000 -7000 -6000 -5000 -4000 -3000 -2000 -1000 0 1000 2000
-8000 -7000 -6000 -5000 -4000 -3000 -2000 -1000 0 1000 2000
-8000 -7000 -6000 -5000 -4000 -3000 -2000 -1000 0 1000 2000
-8000 -7000 -6000 -5000 -4000 -3000 -2000 -1000 0 1000 2000
-8000 -7000 -6000 -5000 -4000 -3000 -2000 -1000 0 1000 2000
-8000 -7000 -6000 -5000 -4000 -3000 -2000 -1000 0 1000 2000 P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
P8
Items

23. P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
P8
Geometries
0-2
I punti sono punti…
Point *
3-4
5-6
7-8
9-11
12-14
15-18
20-25

24. P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
P8
Geometries
0.8GB
150MB
Point *
1GB
1GB
1GB
1.2GB
2GB
2GB
2GB

25. Vectorizer
https://github.com/nypl-spacetime/map-vectorizer
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2534931.2534932
Docker image for ancient map vectorization

26. Vectorizer

27. 1588, Braun and
Hogenberg, Civitates
Orbis Terrarum, map
IV-49

28. 1835, Catasto Gregoriano, Vaticano

29. 1835, Catasto Gregoriano, Vaticano

30. The Results

31. Days in WWII
Dati: Progetto THOR

32. English french and
nederland ships – 1700-
1800 – Dati CLIWOC15

33. The travels of the Endeavor,
di James Cook– Dati
CLIWOC15

34. https://map.openhistorymap.org

35. Be kind… it’s still a demo server
https://map.openhistorymap.org

36. Future development

37. External editor
• Tool for educators
• Enabling the creation of visualizations based on already
available data
• Give the possiblility to add new data
• Help reconciling the already present data

38. Wikipedia Integration
• Embed of the map
• Specific relations to show

39. Time Series
• Reference: Wikidata ID
• Reconciliation
• Sources:
• Madison Project
• Global Price Income History
• Integration tools
• R Plugin for data import

40. Historillary (Historical Mapillary)
• Photography was created in 1800
• Before we have views, chinas, paintings
• The idea is to map anything, keeping in mind the quality
in time and space.

41. 3DModelCommons
• FOSS4G2018
«Given the bounding box, the POIs are
loaded (like in most GIS applications)
and the models are loaded and
positioned»

42. Thanks!
Marco.montanari@openhistorymap.org
Grazie soprattutto ai miei archeologi preferiti:
Silvia Bernardoni, Lucia Marsicano, Raffaele Trojanis