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Archive for the ‘History’ Category

Washington DC Historic Maps

January 11th, 2010 No comments

This is a collection of historic maps and birds eye images of Washington DC during the late 1800s and early 1900s.  The collection includes 58 highly-detailed topographic maps that appear to have been completed in the 1870s and 1880s of the outlying areas of Washington DC.  These were a bit tricky to georeference, but they turned out to be amazingly accurate given the time period in which they were originally surveyed.  The topographic maps show the locations of buildings, military installations, horse race tracks, etc, as well as general land use.

The birds eye images have been placed in the approximate location of the original artist’s perspective.  These are very high resolution images so go ahead and zoom in to see all the detail.

All of the maps and images are about 3-5 megabytes and may take a minute or two to load.  The following maps/images are included.

  • 58 topographic maps from the 1870s/1880s (from NOAA Historic Maps)
  • 1792 plan of Washington DC (from NOAA Historic Maps)
  • 1851 map of Washington DC (from David Rumsey Historic Maps)
  • 1861 map of Washington DC (from David Rumsey Historic Maps)
  • 1871, 1883, 1888, 1916, and 1923 Birds Eye images from various locations around Washington DC (from Library of Congress)

Washington DC Maps

Washington DC Maps

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Credits

Google Earth Library

David Rumsey Map Collection

NOAA Historic Maps

Library of Congress American Memory Collection

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Prehistoric Sites

December 27th, 2009 No comments

The Megalithic Portal website has created a collection showing the locations of over 15,000 prehistoric and other ancient sites in Google Earth.

The collection is organized by categories, such as ancient caves, temples, and burial chambers. More information about these locations can be found a their website.

Prehistoric Sites

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Credits

Megalithic Portal Meets Google Earth

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Categories: History Tags: History, Museums

Rosetta Project

December 26th, 2009 No comments

The goal of the Rosetta Project is to document current and historic languages throughout the world. They have created a set of files for Google Earth that showcase some of their efforts. This file contains the following information.

  • Endangered Languages – Shows the locations of numerous endangered languages is Africa and the Americas.
  • West Coast Language Use in Urban Centers – Shows the breakdown of language use in major cities of the Western United States.
  • Audio Collections – A collection of audio samples for several languages throughout the Earth.

Rosetta Project

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Credits

Rosetta Project

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Categories: History Tags: audio, History, language

Bible Locations

December 24th, 2009 No comments

This is a collection of locations and other geographical data related to the Bible. Includes the following:

If you know of any other Bible related files for Google Earth, post a comment and I will add to the collection.

Bible locations

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Credits

See Above

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Categories: History Tags: Bible, Israel

National Register of Historic Places

December 2nd, 2009 2 comments

The National Register of Historic Places has identified and documented approximately 80,000 districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that are significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture. The Register is maintained by the US National Park Service (NPS).

The NPS has created a Google Earth version of the database, which you can find at the National Park Service Google Earth Layers web page. However, the version they created isn’t very user friendly and appears to be out dated.

I’ve used the most current source data (as of November 2009) to create a much more user friendly version of the Registry. Simply download the Network Link from the bottom of the post, zoom in close to a city, and the historic places will automatically show up as you navigate around.

The historic places are separated into Points and Areas. The Points typically represent a single location, such as a house or building. The Areas might represent large areas, such as historic districts. There are approximately 80,000 locations mapped in total.

The placemarks do have some geocoding errors, which are carried over from the source data. I have no plans to correct these. However, I think overall the geocoding appears to be very good.

This collection is not intended to be current, “official” or complete!!. You MUST go to the National Park Service website if current or official information is required.

Historic Places Inventory

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Credits

Google Earth Library

National Park Service National Register Information System

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Historic Aerial Photographs

November 30th, 2009 No comments

Various high resolution historic aerial photograph overlays for various cities.  I will continue to add additional locations as I have time.

The collection currently includes the following:

Los Angeles 1948 (Aerials from USGS)

New York City 1954 (Aerials from USGS)

Oakland, California 1948 (Aerials from USGS)

Chicago, 1938 (Aerials from Illinois Natural Resources Geospatial Clearinghouse)

Los Angeles Intl Airport, 1938, 1945, 1952, 1963, 1985 and 1992

Central Park Historical Aerial Photograph

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Credits

Google Earth Library

See Above

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How to Research Historical Aerial Photographs

August 25th, 2009 No comments

Although this isn’t directly related to Google Earth, I thought there might be some people interested in researching old aerial photographs that aren’t available in Google Earth.  I’ve put together some instructions on how to do this research yourself.

We will be using the EarthExplorer website created by the USGS, which has  historical aerial photographs covering most of the continental US that often date back to the 1940s or 1950s.  These aerials are available to download at no charge.

Read more…

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Categories: History Tags: EarthExplorer, History, USGS

Historic US State Boundaries

July 9th, 2009 No comments

This set of files shows the configuration of United States and Territories every 10 years from 1790 to 1920. You can watch the United States start out with the 13 original States (actually I think it was 14 by 1790) and expand westward to the Pacific. I believe the only thing to change after 1920 was Alaska and Hawaii being changed from Territories to States, which is why I stopped at 1920.

The original shapefile data was obtained from the National Historical Geographic Information System. I simplified the polygons to allow them to display in Google Earth.

Each decade is an approximately 1 to 1.5 megabyte file that will take a minute or so to download and be processed by Google Earth, depending on the speed of your Internet connection and computer.

Historic United States Boundaries

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Credits

Google Earth Library

National Historical Geographic Information System

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