{"id":2583,"date":"2017-11-12T18:45:48","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T02:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/?p=2583"},"modified":"2017-11-12T18:45:48","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T02:45:48","slug":"week-6-dh-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/2017\/11\/12\/week-6-dh-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 6 (DH Maps)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The project that I looked at was Locating London<\/a>. This project used an eighteenth century map of the city, produced by\u00a0John Rocque. The project allows users to compare that initial map to the first modern map which was created in 1869-80, and then again to a modern Google Maps rendition.<\/p>\n

This map shows (from what I can tell) the majority of London’s main features like roads and landmarks. It definitely reflects the point of view of the cartographer, in this case\u00a0John Rocque, but he is probably just transcribing the point of view of the majority or the ruling power at the time.<\/p>\n

The map reveals what is the “real” London or how it is portrayed on a global scale. Since it is probably accessible and potentially distributed to travelers and citizens alike, it must convey a certain sense of generality as opposed to colloquialism. This is what most maps should do though. They should attempt to identify features of the city or landscape by terms that are more universally understood, therefore allowing the map to be understood by the largest combination of people.<\/p>\n

What the map obscures, however, is the interpretation of London by the people who live in it. I know from my own experience, that I refer to local landmarks and areas by different names than those that are used by cartographers. People living in cities and towns create their own naming systems perhaps and can even create divisions that aren’t represented on maps. For example, where I live, there is a large hill with only one road through it. The people on the other side of the hill live in “the valley” (the town is called Lagunitas and doesn’t even contain the word valley in its name). However, this distinction is not, and probably will never be recognized on any official map. Yet, whenever someone says that they’re headed into the valley or hanging out with some valley kids, everyone knows what they mean. Other examples include gang “turfs” or territories or shortcuts through alleys or backyards. Overall, while the London map, as well as most maps, does a good job of showing how London appears to an outside observer, but obscures how locals divide and name their own city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The project that I looked at was Locating London. This project used an eighteenth century map of the city, produced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}