The online HGIS project I found is about my home town Beijing, this interactive map shows how Beijing was the greatest walled capital city anywhere in the world. Due to modern development of the city, the old defense purpose city walls are holding back the economy of the city. These walls were taken down, replaced by highway and business center. As these walls still live in the memories of the earlier generations, resident and visitor today can only see a tiny trace of theses old gates and walls that no longer exist.
This HGIS project gathered old Beijing map, simplified it to a strait forward digital map that most people can understand. They create icon of the old gate and placed them accordingly on to the old map. Each of these icons also serve as link that leads viewer to the gallery of photos describing this specific gate from different time. The collection of photos is massive even for each gate, they are taking the online viewer through a virtual tour in the old Beijing city. The completeness and structural design of this map makes it the most efficient way to study the old Beijing walls and gates. It will save time for researcher, on locating the position, identifying its appearance, and understanding its geographical characteristic. If I must say a way its poorly done, then it will be the lack of info, there are so many critical information that could be add on to it. For example, the size different of structure, the component different of the building, the reason and time it got destroyed, more importantly how these locations look like today.
The disappearance of the old Beijing city is a big lost to the modern world, but within this modern world we can see how convenience and powerful that digital mapping can be to help us see what has changed.
HIST2P26 