Georeferencing Historical Maps

This workshop offers an introduction to georeferencing historical maps with QGIS. Georeferencing is the process of taking a digital image or map and connecting it to a real world geographic coordinate system, allowing you to overlay historical and current maps, and to analyze relationships between them using GIS tools.

We will begin by exploring Koerner Library’s physical map collection and then work through georeferencing a scanned historical map of Vancouver Schools from 1975. By the end of this workshop you will be able to

• Understand the essential concepts and steps for georeferencing a digitized historical map
• Demonstrate the georeferencing process using a desktop GIS software
• Calculate and evaluate errors involved with transforming a paper map into GIS data
• Formulate ideas for further using georeferenced maps with modern spatial data

Things to do before arriving:

Before attending this workshop we recommend you establish a basic familiarity with the QGIS Interface. Check out the Library’s Map Production with QGIS for a gentle introduction.

QGIS is a free and open source desktop geographic information system (GIS). It can be installed on Windows, MacOS, and Linux using the download instructions here: https://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html. This workshop will use the Long Term Release (LTR) version 3.28.

The workshop will not be held in a computer lab, so please come to the workshop with a laptop and the LTR of QGIS already installed. If you have questions about installing the software or do not have a laptop, please contact Alex Alisauskas before the workshop – alexandra.alisauskas@ubc.ca.

Location:

Walter C. Koerner Library, Room 216