A Practium On Uncertainty: Creation Of An HGIS Database

Integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) historical sources and geospatial technology offers a fruitful new approach to mapping, analyzing, and modeling the past. This project employs sources freely available online to create a historical geodatabase of the A Line of the Mexican National Railroad circa 1910. The project utilizes satellite imagery, census data, historical maps, train schedules along with postcards and photography from the period, to reconstruct the rail line and its stations shortly before the Mexican Revolution. These sources are combined in a GIS to create a highly accurate map and associated historical database of the system as it existed in the first decade of the 20th Century. The database suggests the potential of future scholarship combining GIS software, satellite imagery, and online source materials.