4 ms·

The data for the rulers I can get from WikiData <3, but are the land coverage polygons open source aka available somewhere? I would love to use them in my own p

The data for the rulers I can get from WikiData <3, but are the land coverage polygons open source aka available somewhere? I would love to use them in my own projects.

mongol 8y ago
I looked for something like that a while back but did not find it. It would be great to have. It is also interesting to think about how a data model for evolving geographical boundaries would look. Preferably as a set of "patches" rather than yearly snapshots?
- GijsjanB 8y ago
  I understand that a company which has invested in these maps wants a ROI, but really, the polygons should be in the public domain and improved on accuracy. I can imagine a lot of people would be interested to work on this.
  - mongol 8y ago
    Yes. Perhaps the next major Wikipedia - like project :-)
    - akavel 8y ago
      I once thought of such a project - a dynamic map of borders and battles/army movements through history. Perhaps crowdsourced ala Wikimapia/OpenStreetMap. But never tried to work on making this project reality. Could have even scientific value, but also high potential for quarells, and need to somehow represent uncertainty, probably.
      - mongol 8y ago
        An approach similar to Wikidata could be taken. "According yo Israel, the border changed like this". I.e. not a database of objective facts, but of statements.
      - maxerickson 8y ago
        It isn't moving very fast, but OpenHistoricalMap is an existing thing: http://www.openhistoricalmap.org/ http://www.openhistoricalmap.org/ It is based on the OpenStreetMap tech stack.
    - cobbzilla 8y ago
      I made https://histori.city https://histori.city to be a wikipedia + maps mashup. the novel feature was adding a time range control so you can navigate the map in both space and across time. it's a work in progress, currently has a few tens of thousands of battles and city-foundings throughout history. it would be nice to remove google dependency and use OSM.

The data for the rulers I can get from WikiData <3, but are the land coverage polygons open source aka available somewhere? I would love to use them in my own projects.

mongol 8y ago

I looked for something like that a while back but did not find it. It would be great to have. It is also interesting to think about how a data model for evolving geographical boundaries would look. Preferably as a set of "patches" rather than yearly snapshots?

GijsjanB 8y ago
I understand that a company which has invested in these maps wants a ROI, but really, the polygons should be in the public domain and improved on accuracy. I can imagine a lot of people would be interested to work on this.
- mongol 8y ago
  Yes. Perhaps the next major Wikipedia - like project :-)
  - akavel 8y ago
    I once thought of such a project - a dynamic map of borders and battles/army movements through history. Perhaps crowdsourced ala Wikimapia/OpenStreetMap. But never tried to work on making this project reality. Could have even scientific value, but also high potential for quarells, and need to somehow represent uncertainty, probably.
    - mongol 8y ago
      An approach similar to Wikidata could be taken. "According yo Israel, the border changed like this". I.e. not a database of objective facts, but of statements.
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      It isn't moving very fast, but OpenHistoricalMap is an existing thing: http://www.openhistoricalmap.org/ http://www.openhistoricalmap.org/ It is based on the OpenStreetMap tech stack.
  - cobbzilla 8y ago
    I made https://histori.city https://histori.city to be a wikipedia + maps mashup. the novel feature was adding a time range control so you can navigate the map in both space and across time. it's a work in progress, currently has a few tens of thousands of battles and city-foundings throughout history. it would be nice to remove google dependency and use OSM.