Translation: Jon Alkorta Martiartu, PhD (UPV/EHU)
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Cultural Heritage
Geographic Information Systems are a great tool to analyse any data related to geography. Thus, the points, lines or areas that we establish on a map can be associated with any type of database, enabling us to carry out different operations with them to obtain results. To this, the world of Cultural Heritage is no exception.
GIS of Paisaje de la Luz
In my specific case, I am working on the GIS of the Paisaje de la Luz, a Madrid good inscribed on the World Heritage List just a year ago. The tool we use is ArcGIS by ESRI, a leader in geolocation applications. On a first level, we have the delimitation of the territory, based on a space that establishes the area declared as World Heritage. Within the area, we can also see which Cultural Heritage Sites are located there. And as a third derivative, we are operating with data associated with this territory to find out, for example, the number of visitors who come to the cultural spaces within the area or its population’s level of education. Thanks to the cooperation from the local council’s General Deputy for Urban Innovation and Technology, all this data is available via Geoportal.
That is not all, though. This organism will also make available satellite images to obtain data crucial to climate change, as can be the vegetation index or a heat island. These will be readily available at Geoportal.
Last year we presented the project in the ‘Jornadas de Geodatos 2022’. The talk I gave is available in the following link:
World Heritage Journeys
Continuing with those initiatives related to geolocalisation and world heritage, UNESCO and National Geographic have come together to produce a series of routes that allow us to learn about countless world heritage sites, as well as their cultural, gastronomic and leisure offer. I would like to focus on the website World Heritage Journeys Europe, where we find four possible routes: old Europe, romantic Europe, royal Europe and subterranean Europe. By means of several maps, the user can see the proposed destinies with information about each of them with regards to interesting sites or activities that they offer. I think this is brilliant. You can find it here:
World Heritage Journeys, presented by UNESCO, guides you to the most unique and authentic world heritage travel experiences, recommended by local experts and curated by National Geographic.
Mistérica Terra Secreta
Let us now move to two other apps that we could use with WordPress if we wanted to give our website a ‘geo’ touch. The first option, which I used for my project Mistérica Terra Secreta is the plugin GeoDirectory, which basically creates a directory of places organized in different categories. As I am a lover of mystery, I developed a map that showed secret places all around the world with the help of very diverse people that had knowledge of these places. Although it was a lovely project, it was perhaps more than I could chew. Maybe UNESCO and National Geographic’s approach is better. My website is still going though, and you can visit it here
Mistérica: search for those mysterious places on the map or using the search engine. You will learn about their mysteries and the way you must follow to reach them.
Atlas Obscura
Talking about ideas that do actually work and are related to mystery and geography we find the website Atlas Obscura. I also took inspiration from this one when I was designing Mistérica, but it is clear that the British know how to make profit from a good idea. The contents they produce are geolocalised: routes, places, experiences or gastronomy. They even organize special travels for groups, offer events worldwide or edit travel guides for people of all ages. Their powerful search engine offers you the distance between the locations you are searching for and other interesting spots nearby. It is an excellent tool. I use it every time I am travelling abroad, lest a mysterious location slips past me. You can access it here:
Atlas Obscura – Curious and Wondrous Travel Destinations Definitive guidebook and friendly tour-guide to the world’s most wondrous places. Travel tips, articles, strange facts and unique events.
Radio Viajera
My friends over at Radio Viajera have also been pretty successful with their geolocalised podcast app On Way Podcasts. If you are travelling and enter the app and pass by a place registered in their network, a podcast that talks about that place will suddenly pop up. It is really cool, and it has been such a pleasure to work with them in my podcast La biblioteca escarlata. This is indeed a pioneering Spanish geolocalisation project. I also work with them in the podcast Las voces de Ucrania, where Ukranian Spanish Philology students tell us about the beauty of their country, which we will no doubt visit when the conflict is over.
You can download the On Way Podcast app here:
Google My Maps
A more functional app that I have used in WordPress with more success has been the map of the mysterious places of Madrid with Google My Maps app. With the Google hub you have free access to this tool where you can generate points of interest and routes very easily and which also allows you to link them to the Google Maps mobile app, which gives you the option of calculating the route to get to those points. If you want to see how I have applied it, here is the homepage of my book Crónicas del Madrid secreto where you can see the different places I tackle in the book:
Why did Cybele, a pagan goddess of Thracian origin, eventually become an emblematic figure of Madrid? What is the connection between the great Leonardo da Vinci and this city? Which buildings and important figures in Madrid show the powerful influence exerted by Freemasonry?
Story Maps
Finally, I wanted to talk to you about Story Maps. If you want to create a small website whose storyline is, for example, an itinerary with different points of interest, you don’t even need to have a website with WordPress (and if you do, you can embed it in a very easy way). This is a digital story creator offered by ESRI, through the ArcGIS online app. It allows you to tell a story with texts, images and videos that progress as you move around a map. It is a very powerful tool and allows you, if you have a little artistic talent, to create web pages as beautiful as this one I want to show you: Neolithical Mystery Tour. The Stone Age Comes to Life in Orkney, created by Jim Richardson. You can see it here:
OpenEdition le sugiere que cite este post de la siguiente manera:
Dr. Pedro Ortega (1 de marzo de 2023). Sistemas de Información Geográfica y Patrimonio Cultural. El blog de Tartalo. Recuperado 19 de marzo de 2025 de https://doi.org/10.58079/unvj