Building a digital atlas of political territories
using
a CIDOC CRM compatible ontology


Francesco Beretta

with the participation of

Claire-Charlotte Butez et Djamel Ferhod

Laboratoire de recherche historique Rhône-Alpes
(UMR5190 CNRS – Université de Lyon)


ICHG Warshaw 2018

Presentation's agenda

  • A digital research environment for geo-historical research: the symogih.org project
  • Interoperability of historical data: the Data for history consortium
  • A digital atlas of political territories

    1. Desired features
    2. Building a collaborative gazetteer: the identity of geographical places
    3. Modelling the historical evolution of places and their representations with geometries
    4. Producing data
    5. Conclusion

symogih.org: a collaborative digital environment
for historical research

Interoperability of historical data:
the Data for history consortium

Appointment (Nomination) -TyIn6

CIDOC CRM (official standard ISO 21127:2006)

Data for History Consortium

A digital atlas of political territories


1. Desired features

Prototype of an atlas of political territories in Europe

Historical georeferenced maps adapted to the period under consideration

Good quality georeferenced maps which can be used for spatial analysis

Spatial data representing the historical evolution of territories

A digital atlas of political territories


2. Building a collaborative gazetteer:
the identity of geographical places

A controlled vocabulary for place types:
Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus

A digital atlas of political territories


3. Modelling the historical evolution of places and their representations with geometries

The historical evolution of territories is handled in the ontology

Historical relationships among places, and/or among collective actors and places
are modelled in the ontology
independently from the representation of places using geometries


"Types of information" (Temporal entities' classes – 'events'):

Type of information "Incorporation of territory" (rattachement de territoire)

A digital atlas of political territories


4. Producing data

Territories' evolution is first addressed in ontology

Then geometries are produced
The issue of choosing the most appropriate scale:

  • Time scale: precision to the day
  • Spatial scale: inhabited places and significant natural features are inside the correct political territory (B.)

The historical evolution of territories is handled in the ontology

Evolution of Belgium's territory
(See the atlas)

symogih.org SPARQL enpoint:


SELECT ?s ?label ?date
WHERE {?s ?p syr:TyIn133;
sym:knowledgeUnitStandardLabel ?label;
sym:knowledgeUnitStandardDate ?date}

Conclusion

  • Rewrite/republish the atlas' data according to the new model, including geometries and rich metadata: FAIR data.
  • Produce new data or find partners interested in sharing this vision, and start together a new project

The End

or ...

... the beginning of



a new digital atlas of political territories.