Historical GIS and Spatial Humanities

When considering a Historical GIS or spatial humanities research project, historical maps are probably one of the first things you will need. In most cases the historical map will perhaps have to be scanned, then georeferenced for use in your project. Once the historical map has been georeferenced, you can use it as a historical overlay map or use it to digitize features on the map such as historic roads or building footprints to produce a vector layer. This section will provide resources on where to find historical maps at Michigan Tech or around the web. 

What types of maps should I be looking for?

Sanborn Fire Insurance Plans

Produced by the Sanborn Map Company. They provide detailed depictions of many towns and cities in the United States. These maps include streets names, building names, building addresses, building usage and the material each building was made out of. 

USGS Topographic Maps

These maps produced by the United States Geological Survey show important features on the landscape as it existed in the past. They are great sources for roads, railroads, buildings, and other important landmarks. 

NOAA Nautical Charts

Nautical charts are very similar in the USGS Topographic Quadrangles but in addition to roads, railway, and buildings they also show important nautical features such a historical water depth levels of lakes. 

Aerial imagery

Historical aerial imagery can be highly useful for showing an accurate representation of the past landscape and can be used as a base map for georeferencing other historical maps. 
 

Where can I find historical maps and imagery?

If you are looking for maps, plans, and photographs that are unique to the Keweenaw or the Upper Peninsula a good place to start may be the Michigan Tech Archives. 
 

• Library of Congress
  The Library of Congress provides free access to scans of thousands of historical Sanborn Fire Insurance Plans for many cities and towns in the United States. The scans can be downloaded as high-resolution TIFFs for georeferencing in ArcGIS Pro or QGIS. 
• Rumsey Historical Map Collection
  A large collection of scanned 16th through 21st Century maps of North American, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Antarctica, the Pacific, and the Arctic. There are over 127,000 historical maps in this collection. 
• American Geographical Society Library
  The American Geographical Society Library has collections consisting of nearly 2 millions maps, atlases, globes, monographs, serials, photographs, and digital geospatial data. 
• Old Maps Online
  A free interactive mapping tool that allows you to locate and download historical maps within any area that the interactive map is currently zoomed to.
• USGS TopoView
  Find and download both current and historical USGS topographic maps. Users can locate topographic maps by map extent or keyword and filter by map year and scale. 
• Copper Country Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure
  The CCHSDI is a GIS data portal containing several georeferenced historical maps and datasets of the Keweenaw. These datasets include Sanborn Fire Insurance Plans, old mining maps, historical plat maps, and geocoded census and city directory records. 
• Copper Country Historical Images (CCHI)
  CCHI is an excellent source of historical maps and photographs from around the Copper Country. 
• GRF Map Catalog
  The GRF Map Catalog contains hundreds of historical map scans from different areas of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. These maps include plat maps, mining company maps, nautical charts, and land use maps.
• USGS EarthExplorer
  A source for historical aerial photography in the United States. Aerial imagery can be found in most areas as early as the 1930s. 
• Upper Peninsula Digital Network (UPLINK)
  UPLINK provides access to a large collection of maps, plans, and photographs from various institutions in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

Finding historical GIS datasets can at times be challenging but there are a few different websites that house historical GIS data. You can also create your own historical GIS data by digitizing features such as roads, railroad tracks, or building footprints from historical maps like Sanborn Fire Insurance Plans or USGS Topographic Maps. In order to create your own GIS datasets from historical maps, the maps would first have to be georeferenced. 
 

• IPUMS NHGIS
  Historical U.S. Census data tables and compatible boundary files for all Census geographies from from 1790-Present. 
• Copper Country Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure
  The CCHSDI is a GIS data portal containing several georeferenced historical maps and datasets of the Keweenaw. These datasets include Sanborn Fire Insurance Plans, old mining maps, historical plat maps, building footprints, and geocoded census and city directory records. 
• Atlas of Historical County Boundaries
  Provides shapefiles for historical county boundaries for all 50 states in the US. The Atlas provides data on changes to the size, shape, and location of every county in 50 US States and the District of Columbia. 
• Railroads and the Making of Modern America
  Offers historical railroad system GIS KML files for railroads in the US starting in 1840. This data can also be downloaded as an ESRI Geodatabase. 
• United Sates Congressional District Shapefiles
  A source for digital boundary shapefiles for every U.S. Congressional District in us between 1789 and 2012.