Historical Geocoder

Joop VanderheidenCultural Heritage Agency

Special thanks to:Menno den EngelseIslands of Meaning

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Mission

“... create a geocoder for the cultural heritage field...”

So, what do those cultural heritage people want then?Question?

• Standardization of geographic terms• Geometries • Time

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Team• Developers: Jelle Herold (Waag) & Bert Spaan (Waag now NYPL)

• Developers: Petra Dreiskämper & Menno den Engelse

• DEN: Rein van 't Veer & Ralph Kits

• Cultural Heritage Agency: Joop Vanderheiden

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Histograph Datamodel

PiTs (Places in Time)• a PiT comes from a dataset (the authority lies with the author)• has a URI or an id• has a type• can have a name• can have a geometry• can have a periodisation

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Ontology

hg:PiTType

prov:Entity

time:TemporalEntit

y

geo:Feature

Hg:PiT

Xsd:string

hg:hasGeoFeauture

hg:hasTimeTeporalEntity

hg:hasProvEntity

hg:hasPiTType

hg:hasName

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Hongerige Wolf (Hungry Wolf) is a hamlet with a population of 30 in the municipality of Oldambt in the Netherlands.

PiT

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Relations between PiT’s

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Hg:PiT

Hg:PiT

Hg:PiT

Hg:PiT

Hg:PiT

Hg:PiT

Hg:PiT

Hg:PiT

owl:sameAs

hg:absorbedBy

hg:within

hg:isUsedFor

hg:absorbed

hg:contains

PiT’s sameAs

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hgConcept

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LiesIn

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Events

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A lot of PiT’s

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DatasetsThe Big 4• Geonames• TGN (The Getty Thesaurus of Geographical Names)• BAG (Key Registers of Addresses and Buildings)• NWB (National Roads Database)

Cover places, municipalities, streets, buildings, etc. But, (almost) no historical data.

Place toponyms from historic sources:• Simon Hart• Illustre Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap (Illustrious Brotherhood of Our

Blessed Lady)• 500+ 'Verdwenen Dorpen'

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Verdwenen dorpen

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MunicipalitiesGemeentegeschiedenis

• Historical municipalities• Historical geometries

Toponyms mainly from militieregisters (Vele Handen).

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Militieregisters

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RosendaalRoosendaal

Streets• NWB geometries• BAG id's

Historical data abundant, yet hard to get.There should be a 'Historisch Straatnamen Register'

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Historical streetnames

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Streetnames

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Churchillaan

RooseveltlaanStalinlaan

Destalinisation

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BuildingsBAG• Buildingnames from monumentenregister• Lost Buildings

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Lost buildings

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Country’s

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Neighbourhoods

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Where to find?http://www.erfgeo.nl• Geothesaurus• Tool to standardise placenames• Histodraw

API• https://api.histograph.io

Github• https://github.com/histograph/

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Example: Zee

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Thesaurus

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API

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Erfgeoproxy

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Nieuwmarkt 4

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Elephant in the room

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Thank you

Questions?

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http://www.erfgeo.nlj.vanderheiden@cultureelerfgoed.nl