GeoPolMaps

Not just another GIS

A cartographic editor built on historical data. Select a date and the political geography of that day appears. Style it, annotate it, enrich it with data, and share it.

GeoPolMaps is a cartographic editor derived from the historical model of Phersu Atlas. Rather than relying on static layers, it works with political entities defined in time and connected to events and territorial changes. Every map is generated from the underlying database: select a date and the borders valid for that day appear automatically. Styles, colours and annotations can then be added while remaining distinct from the historical data.

The guiding principle is continuity from source to map. Historical sources become structured data, and data becomes visualisations. This helps prevent common errors in historical cartography, such as anachronistic borders or states that did not yet exist, or no longer existed, at the selected date.

Three uses

• Research — rigorous maps for articles, theses and conferences.
• Teaching — clear maps for lectures, exercises and presentations.
• Geopolitical communication — effective visualisations that explain complex phenomena to a non-specialist public.

How a map is made

Three choices come first, always in the same order: a style (Standard, Old Style, Transparent, Dark), a date — any day from 1 January 3499 BC to today — and a projection (Mercator, Equal Area Cylindrical or Polar Stereographic North). Then the editor opens.

• Main map and background — recolour polities, seas and oceans; choose OpenStreetMap, a physical map with bathymetry, Copernicus relief or the historical coastline as background.
• Elements — polygons, lines, arrows, ellipses, circles, icons, flags, text blocks, free-hand markers, legends and your own images.
• Layers from the database — first-level administrative divisions, such as the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire in 500 BC.
• Data and colouring — attach numeric or qualitative values to elements (paste them from a spreadsheet) and generate a choropleth map with an automatic legend.
• Metadata and Infobox — a title, a description and two links per element, so a shared map becomes a small consultable dataset.
• Save and share — Save, Save as…, Export PNG and a view-only link that opens the map exactly as saved.

The 3D editor

About ninety percent of the functions are shared with the 2D editor. The 3D editor adds a globe or a plane with real relief, hillshading, four orientations (look at the Mediterranean “from the south”) and relief exaggeration up to 8×, so physical geography and political borders can be read together.