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This page intentionally left blank HISTORICAL GIS Technologies, Methodologies and Scholarship Ian N. Gregory Lancaster University Paul S. Ell Queen’s University of Belfast CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY 39 Series editors Alan R. H. Baker, Richard Dennis, Deryck Holdsworth Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography encourages exploration of the philosophies, methodologies and techniques of historical geography, and publishes the results of new research within all branches of the subject. It endeavours to secure the marriage of traditional scholarship with innovative approaches to problems and sources, aiming in this way to provide a focus for the discipline and to contribute towards its development. The series is an international forum for publication in historical geography, which also promotes contact with workers in cognate disciplines. Books in the series 1 Period and Place: Research Methods in Historical Geography. Edited by Alan R. H. Baker and M. Billinge 2 The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707: Geographical Aspects of Modernisation. David Turnock 3 Historical Understanding in Geography: an Idealist Approach. Leonard Guelke 4 English Industrial Cities of the Nineteenth Century: a Social Geography. R. J. Dennis 5 Explorations in Historical Geography: Interpretative Essays. Edited by Alan R. H. Baker and Derek Gregory 6 The Tithe Surveys of England and Wales. R. J. P. Kain and H. C. Prince 7 Human Territoriality: its Theory and History. Robert David Sack 8 The West Indies: Patterns of Development, Culture and Environmental Change since 1492. David Watts 9 The Iconography of Landscape: Essays in the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments. Edited by Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels 10 Urban Historical Geography: Recent Progress in Britain and Germany. Edited by Dietrich Denecke and Gareth Shaw 11 An Historical Geography of Modern Australia: the Restive Fringe. J. M. Powell 12 The Sugar-cane Industry: an Historical Geography from its Origins to 1914. J. H. Galloway 13 Poverty, Ethnicity and the American City, 1840–1925: Changing Conceptions of the Slum and Ghetto. David Ward 14 Peasants, Politicians and Producers: the Organisation of Agriculture in France since 1918. M. C. Cleary 15 The Underdraining of Farmland in England during the Nineteenth Century. A. D. M. Phillips 16 Migration in Colonial Spanish America. Edited by David Robinson 17 Urbanising Britain: Essays on Class and Community in the Nineteenth Century. Edited by Gerry Kearns and Charles W. J. Withers 18 Ideology and Landscape in Historical Perspective: Essays on the Meanings of Some Places in the Past. Edited by Alan R. H. Baker and Gideon Biger 19 Power and Pauperism: the Workhouse System, 1834–1884. Felix Driver 20 Trade and Urban Development in Poland: an Economic Geography of Cracow from its Origins to 1795. F. W. Carter 21 An Historical Geography of France. Xavier De Planhol 22 Peasantry to Capitalism: Western Östergötland in the Nineteenth Century. Goran Hoppe and John Langton 23 Agricultural Revolution in England: the Transformation of the Agrarian Economy, 1500–1850. Mark Overton 24 Marc Bloch, Sociology and Geography: Encountering Changing Disciplines. Susan W. Friedman 25 Land and Society in Edwardian Britain. Brian Short 26 Deciphering Global Epidemics: Analytical Approaches to the Disease Records of World Cities, 1888–1912. Andrew Cliff, Peter Haggett and Matthew Smallman-Raynor 27 Society in Time and Space: a Geographical Perspective on Change. Robert A. Dodgshon 28 Fraternity Among the French Peasantry: Sociability and Voluntary Associations in the Loire Valley, 1815–1914. Alan R. H. Baker 29 Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840–1865. Mark Bassin 30 Hong Kong as a Global Metropolis. David M. Meyer 31 English Seigniorial Agriculture, 1250–1450. Bruce M. S. Campbell 32 Governmentality and the Mastery of Territory in Nineteenth-Century America. Matthew G. Hannah 33 Geography, Science and National Identity: Scotland since 1520. Charles W. J. Withers 34 Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism. Gregory Barton 35 Ireland, the Great War and the Geography of Remembrance. Nuala C. Johnson 36 Geography and History: Bridging the Divide. Alan R. H. Baker 37 Geographies of England: the North–South Divide, Imagined and Material. Alan R. H. Baker and Mark Billinge 38 White Creole Culture, Politics and Identity during the Age of Abolition. David Lambert 39 Historical GIS: Technologies, Methodologies and Scholarship. Ian N. Gregory and Paul S. Ell Titles marked with an asterisk are available in paperback. HISTORICAL GIS Technologies, Methodologies and Scholarship Ian N. Gregory Lancaster University Paul S. Ell Queen’s University of Belfast CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org 9780521855631 © Ian N. Gregory and Paul S. Ell 2007 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2007 ISBN-13 978-0-511-37878-2 ISBN-13 978-0-521-85563-1 ISBN-13 978-0-521-67170-5 eBook (NetLibrary) hardback paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. CONTENTS List of figures viii List of tables xi Acknowledgements xii 1 GIS and its role in historical research: an introduction 1 2 GIS: a framework for representing the Earth’s surface 21 3 Building historical GIS databases 41 4 Basic approaches to handling data in a historical GIS 63 5 Using GIS to visualise historical data 89 6 Time in historical GIS databases 119 7 Geographic Information Retrieval: historical geographic information on the internet and in digital libraries 145 8 GIS and quantitative spatial analysis 161 9 From techniques to knowledge: historical GIS in practice 183 References 205 Index 222 Figures Page 1.1 An example of a GIS as a database showing both spatial and attribute data 4 2.1 Spatial data: points 24 2.2 Spatial data: simplified representation of lines in a GIS 24 2.3 Spatial data: simplified representation of polygons in a GIS 25 2.4 Simplified representation of forming a network from line segments and topological information 27 2.5 A raster surface in a GIS 28 2.6 Digital terrain modelling using a triangulated irregular network 32 2.7 Spatial and attribute data 34 2.8 Using relational joins to link to data in an attribute database 36 2.9 Abstracting a map into layers 38 3.1 Different digitising producing different lines 47 3.2 Geo-referencing a layer 48 3.3 Rubber-sheeting two layers together 51 3.4 Creating point data from a database table 55 3.5 Linking a GIS layer to external attribute data using place names 56 3.6 Using a gazetteer to standardise place names 56 4.1 Attribute querying of polygon data 65 4.2 Spatial querying of qualitative information 67 4.3 Converting points to Thiessen polygons 69 4.4 Aggregating polygons with a dissolve 70 4.5 Overlaying vector data to produce new layers 73 4.6 Overlaying points and polygons 74 4.7 Overlaying two polygon coverages 75 4.8 Buffers around points, lines and polygons 76 4.9 Using buffering and overlay together 77 4.10 Using buffering to explore the core-periphery divide in infant mortality in England and Wales in the 1900s 79 4.11 Simple map algebra with raster data 80 4.12 Map algebra for site selection 81 4.13 Sliver polygons as a result of vector overlay 83 4.14 A fuzzy point 85 4.15 A line defined by fuzzy coordinates 86 4.16 Using GIS to re-unite disparate data 88 Ключевые слова: transport route, user, surface, special edition, digital, space-time composite, scholarship ian, source, geographical, map-based interface, conventional choropleth, twentieth century, central meridian, scientist, inner-core urban, time, image, alternative route, dust bowl, input grid, database, technique, internet, ecological fallacy, wa, layer, polluted water, create, administrative unit, place, atlas, historical geography, spatial autocorrelation, ha, mapping, structure, yangzi region, infant mortality, tj, completely, inland water, greatly enhances, fourth-class housing, problem, june, single-roomed dwelling, unusually warm, distance, american geographers, dry condition, 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