Events Come to OpenHistoricalMap - SOTM US 2024

Event mapping is being developed in OpenHistoricalMap. This is a review of some of the known issues and proposed solutions. Details of event specific tagging and use of chronology relations are covered.

1. Events Come to
OpenHistoricalMap
Richard Welty
SOTM US, 7 June 2024

2. Examples
•Event sites
•Woodstock 1969
•Routes of Explorers
•Troop Movements in Campaigns and Battles

3. Mapping Events
•Makes sense in OpenHistoricalMap
•Does not make sense in OpenStreetMap
•In OHM, should there be a separate, parallel
database for events or just all in one?

4. Requirements
•Must integrate with current OSM/OHM tagging
conventions
•Easy to identify and extract if we decide to
move to separate, parallel databases
•Leverage WikiData to correlate with non-geo
data

5. Not Everything Requires
New or Special Tagging
•Temporary Burials
•we have the Elliott Burial Maps from
Gettysburg and Antietam
•just tag a cemetery with a start & end date

6. Elliott Burial Map

7. Troop Movements
•Need specific tagging for this
•Unit locations are specified at certain times;
units move
•Use the chronology relation type to group
successive troop positions
•Don’t over do it - use external links for
additional non-geo data like OOB

8. Cope-Carman Map of
1908 - Daybreak

9. Tagging
•nodes and ways for geometry
•start_date and end_date in ISO DateTime
format - duplicate for a single point in time
•event:mil:deployment=line
•the unit is deployed in a line formation in
anticipation of combat
•right hand rule for direction faced

10. Tagging
•event:mil:deployment=column
•for a unit marching in a column - a road
march formation
•direction of way is direction unit is facing

11. Tagging
•event:mil:branch
•infantry, artillery, cavalry, etc.
•event:mil:unit
•regiment, brigade, division

12. Campaigns
•Not precisely the same as battles
•Larger units
•Usually follow roads
•Level of description changes when shifting
from campaign to battle and back

13. Campaigns
•Maryland Campaign of
1862
•This from Wikipedia

14. Campaigns
•tagging proposal still being developed
•perhaps add a route relation type
•e.g. events:mil:march
•include route relation in chronology relation
•start and end date for beginning, end of march