Digital Humanities: Mapping

A geographic information system (GIS) is a computer application designed to perform a wide range of operations on geographic information. (Goodchild, 2009) Geographic information is defined as information about locations on or near the surface of the Earth and may be organized in a variety of ways. Thus, a GIS includes functions to input, store, visualize, export, and analyse such information.

References

Goodchild, M. F. (2009). Geographic Information System. Encyclopedia of Database Systems, 1231–1236. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_178

• Shape file - The ESRI Shapefile has become an industry standard geospatial data format. At least 3 files with the same prefix name and with the following extensions: .shp = shapefile, .shx = header and .dbf = associated database file. Additionally, you may have a .prj = Projection file, a .lyr = layer file, and other index files.
• KML or KMZ - XML based open standard (by OpenGIS) for GIS data exchange
• GeoTiff - TIFF variant enriched with GIS relevant metadata
• GeoJSON – a lightweight format based on JSON, used by many open-source GIS packages

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIS_file_formats

• MIT-OCW Geographic Information Systems(GIS) Tutorial
• Training from The Geospatial Lab (GeoLab) by the Development Bureau of the HKSAR Government
• ESRI Learn ArcGIS
• QGIS Manual
• QGIS Beginner level guide (YouTube)
• Google Earth Beginner level guide (YouTube)

Hong Kong

• Common Spatial Data Infrastructure
• Development, Geography and Land Information | DATA.GOV.HK
• Hong Kong Map Service - Metadata Catalogue System
• GeoInfo Map．Map of Hong Kong provided by HKSARG
• Historic Maps of Hong Kong

China

• China Data Center (U.Mich) – historical, social and natural science data about China.
• China Historical GIS (Harvard) -- a database of populated places and historical administrative units for the period of Chinese history between 221 BCE and 1911 CE. CHGIS provides a base GIS platform for researchers to use in spatial analysis, temporal statistical modeling, and representation of selected historical units as digital maps.
• China (via CIESIN)-- a variety of socioeconomic data, including Geographic Information System (GIS) databases that cover the administrative regions of China, presented at a scale of 1:1,000,000. These databases may be integrated with agricultural, land use, environmental, and socioeconomic data to track China's economic growth, population increases, and environmental change.
• CITAS, China in Time and Space – capable of reconstructing Chinese administrative geography for specific historical dates, and can compare spatial data at two points in time, whether over years or over centuries

Others

• US Census Bureau TIGER Products Including geodatabases and shapefiles designed to be used with ArcGIS and other GIS

• USGS Geo Data Portal Provides access to numerous datasets, including gridded data for climate and land use.

• USGS - The National Map Topographic information for the United States.
• National Historical Geographic Information System Provides, free of charge, aggregate census data and GIS-compatible boundary files for the United States between 1790 and 2014.
• OpenTopography Provides access to high-resolution, Earth science-oriented, topography data, and related tools and resources.