an integrated historical GIS based upon the reduced cadastral maps (1850) (VLL51)

On request of the Flemish Heritage Institute a project was started July 1st 2007 by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel to create a digital map of indicative historical centres for Flanders based upon the reduced cadastral maps (ca. 1850). The reduced cadastral maps have a large potential for the reconstruction, analysis and interpretation of landscapes and settlements because they reflect the landscape before the disturbances of the 19th century. By georeferencing, these maps can be fit in as graphic and spatial data in existing and new GIS applications. As historical settlement cores are vectorised and related to a complex system of data from a broad spectrum of sources, a tool is developed for reconstructing property relations and landscape morphology. Because the settlement patterns and the morphology of parcels reflect the former property relations and settlement structures, the digital map will be composed by defining the historical core settlements and their parcel-based related morphology. This way, an open view is given of the nucleus' cadastral situation and outline.
The direct goal of the project is to set up a georeferenced GIS based upon the reduced cadastral maps to study the archaeological and historical heritage in Flanders. Regarding the future this project is the first start to develop an integrated historical GIS as an interdisciplinary research method for landscapes in their broad historical context. By creating from the start a flexible system for study and analysis, all possibilities towards future extension and refinement of the data and integration of other data types are kept open.

Keywords:cartography, Landscape, Archeology, GIS, heritage

Disciplines:Other engineering and technology, History and archaeology, Arts, Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and allied sciences, Social and economic geography