NLS Maps API: historical map of Great Britain for mashups

Monday, May 10, 2010

With the help of the software developed in our project OldMapsOnline.org has prepared a very interesting historical mapping application, allowing anyone to include selected historical geo-referenced maps of Great Britain in their own websites. Sets of Ordnance Survey mapping relating to Scotland, England and Wales, dating from the 1920s to 1940s, have been seamed together and geo-referenced, then specially prepared for use in external websites.

nls viewer
NLS Maps API: Historical maps of Great Britain for use in mashups 

For more information, please view http://geo.nls.uk/maps/api/

The maps have been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence, allowing free use and adaptation of the mapping, provided it is properly attributed. The maps were scanned and geo-referenced by the National Library of Scotland, and rendered on the Amazon EC2 computer
cluster by Klokan Technologies GmbH, with a software based on a customised version of the MapTiler application.

The maps can be used for many purposes - they can be integrated with other mapping, used for research purposes, used as a backdrop for bespoke markers or mapping data, or used to create other maps (such as OpenStreetMap). The application will also run on many mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad or Google Android based phones - simply by opening the website http://nls.tileserver.com/.

The historical map API homepage provides simple instructions for how to embed the mapping in websites, and use it with the most popular free web-mapping services, including Google, Bing, and Openlayers.

OldMapsOnline.org project will include this map as one of the reference maps in our Georeferencer.org online service.

More info at http://geo.nls.uk/maps/api/
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