GIS Shapefiles of old country borders

July 4, 2016 5:18 PM

I am looking for historic GIS shapefiles, or actual drawn maps that are in the public domain that could be rectified in a GIS system, of the world during the 1820s to 1830s, showing national boundaries at the time and with names for countries and cities that were used at the time, for example "Van Diemen's Land" for Tasmania.

A friend is trying to put together a family history book, and include a map of the journeys of his ancestors to Australia, and wants to plot it on world map that's accurate for the time period of interest. A lot of searching has turned up a pile of historic maps for the United States only, as well as a lot of decades-old dead links.

posted by Jimbob to Science & Nature (5 answers total)

Have you asked around any local universities, museums or government agencies? Even though the USGIS mostly does historic shape files of the US, I'm sure their geographers will have some idea of where to look.

I would call a geographer's group and see if they can connect you to someone. In my experience geographers and map geeks working for public agencies love being asked about their job and share happily. I've had a lot of luck doing that.

The American Geographic Society Library might be able to help you; UNC has an Ancient World Mapping Center but its mostly Greco/Roman stuff.

Here's a collection of resources: https://geospatialhistorian.wordpress.com/finding-data/

Maybe someone here can help you? http://www.davidrumsey.com/

And here: http://www.hgis.org.uk/resources.htm
posted by mmmleaf at 6:57 PM on July 4, 2016

I suck at finding stuff, but the New York Public Library has digital collections available online.

Here is a search for world maps.
posted by Michele in California at 8:00 PM on July 4, 2016

Best answer: The previously-noted David Rumsey Map Collection has crowdsourced georeferencing for many of their map images. It's relatively easy to rectify maps directly on the site and georeference them for everyone's benefit.
posted by scruss at 8:33 PM on July 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

For Australian stuff always start with Trove, it is one of the wonders of our age.

Here's a search for "route to australia" in maps that are available online - you can start to filter them down as you require.

The NLA themselves have digitised a large number of maps - country scale between 1830-1839 is probably a good place to start. You can also start from individual state libraries. The State Library of Victoria have digitised thousands of their historical maps, which includes a few hundred admiralty plans (not sure if that saved search will work) which are a wonderful place to start.

Pretty much all of that is licensed to do whatever you like with, though obviously check that if you're going to use it in a publication.

If you need the map georeferenced / georectified you can do that in pretty much any GIS system - though for the purposes you're talking about that seems a bit of overkill.
posted by coleboptera at 3:12 AM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, the David Rumsey collection ended up being the most useful - I've come across it before, but somehow never realized the maps were downloadable in high resolution and there was a rectification system - I assumed that site was just selling prints for some reason. Anyway, rectification is important, my friend actually has a list of lats/longs for the voyage he wanted to plot accurately. I got a good map from David Rumsey, georectified it for him and he's happy. Thanks all.
posted by Jimbob at 8:43 PM on July 6, 2016