historical political boundaries

[Tyler Mitchell]

Great idea Joe.  I'd love to find some keen students who want to learn mapping or love history and have them scrape some boundaries out of historic map images, e.g. from http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/index.html

Tyler


----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Bussell <joe at OTSYS.COM>
Date: Thursday, July 21, 2005 9:02 am
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] historical political boundaries

> Just for fun I was toying with the idea of playing history back 
> for my 
> son by demonstrating the changing political boundaries.  Are there 
> data 
> sets available for political boundaries for the ancient world?   
> How 
> about pre-WW1 or WW-2?  How about military buildup like the 
> position of 
> Napoleon's army over time, or the extent of Atilla's military 
> reach over 
> time.  Or Phiilip of Macedon and later his son Alexander's land 
> acquisitions, and the later breakup as the satraps and princes 
> struggled 
> for primacy and the resulting divided principalities.
> 
> Can you imagine watching the world's history playing out in an 
> interactive map application?  This would be very cool.
> 
> Has this been done before professionally or privately?
> 
> Cordially,
> 
> Joe Bussell
>