Please post to other relevant lists (NOT lis-maps):

	MAPPING EUROPE'S HISTORIC BOUNDARIES & BORDERS

The European Science Foundation has awarded FF 100,000 (about Pnds 9600 or
$US 15400) to support an "exploratory workshop in the humanities" on
historic boundary mapping.  The workshop will be held at the European
University Institute in Florence on June 1st-3rd 2000.

One purpose of this mailing is to seek additional participants for the
Florence workshop;  the ESF funding covers accommodation and travel costs.
The workshop will be a small gathering of quite specialised researchers
involved in CREATING records of historic boundaries, possibly in the form
of a Geographical Information System (GIS) or possibly through more
traditional mapping.  Many of the places at the workshop are already taken,
but we are keen to increase the number of countries involved and are
particularly seeking participants from Austria, France, Poland, Portugal,
Spain and other ESF members not currently represented.  For more details
see below.

However, we want to also reach out to potential USERS of historic boundary
mapping in a wide range of historical fields, and we are therefore also
announcing:

===>	A round-table discussion within the European Social Science
	History conference in Amsterdam next April.  This will be at
	14:15-16:15 on April 13th;  to register for the ESSH, see:

		http://www.iisg.nl/ESSHC

	At least seven participants in the Florence meeting will
	contribute to the Amsterdam session, but we hope that
	demographic historians, political historians and others who
	have either USED historic boundary mapping or wish it was
	available for their period/country will also be able to attend.

===>	Another workshop session within the International Congress of
	Historical Sciences in Oslo next August.  This will be on
	Friday 11 August or Saturday 12 August, and will be used to
	present the conclusions of the Florence meeting to a wider
	audience.  These conclusions will concern, in part, how to
	link together existing historic boundary mapping for different
	countries and how to extend the resulting European mapping to
	additional countries.  Any such project would take many years
	and cost large sums of money, so we would need to build
	support among a wide range of historians.  For more details
	of the Oslo congress, see:

		http://www.hf.uio.no/oslo2000

===>	We have established a new mailing list linked to the
	workshop:

		[log in to unmask]

	Most preparation for the meeting will be based on this list.
	Membership is limited to participants in the Florence meeting
	and others involved in the field;  if you are interested in
	joining, please contact Humphrey Southall  (NB for more
	general discussion of historical applications of GIS
	technology, see [log in to unmask]).  However, a
	public archive of our discussions will be available at:

		http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/hist-bound

	In the longer term, a new web site will be established,
	probably at the University of Portsmouth (where Humphrey
	Southall is moving in January), containing systematic
	information on all existing historic boundary mapping
	projects.
====================================================================

		FLORENCE WORKSHOP, 1st TO 3rd JUNE 2000
		=======================================

A wide range of information about the past relates to administrative areas,
from nation states down to those covering individual villages, which either
no longer exist or have had their boundaries greatly changed.  Without
detailed information on those boundaries, the information is difficult to
interpret;  and without any locational information it is impossible.  In
the past, such information about locations and boundaries would have been
recorded in paper form as a map, but increasingly it is stored on computer
in the form of a Geographical Information System.

Most European countries have a computerised record of modern boundaries,
and sometimes these are used in historical research.  However, systematic
records of past boundaries are less common, especially in computerised
form.  Such computer systems exist for Norway, Sweden, Belgium and the
Netherlands, and a very large system is under construction for Great
Britain.  These countries benefit from being relatively small, while
Scandinavia and the British Isles have external borders which largely
follow coastlines, and which have consequently been stable over many
centuries.  Elsewhere in Europe, national borders have changed greatly even
within the present century, and in consequence strictly national projects
to record historic boundaries have major problems in both defining what
geographical area they are concerned with and locating relevant record,
which may be in other countries.

Next June's workshop follows on from a succesful workshop more generally
concerned with historical GIS, organised in Florence in 1994 by the
Association for History and Computing.  The objective is to share
experience of large scale boundary mapping projects, rather than historical
GIS as a whole, and to explore the potential for future collaboration
through both technical assistance to national projects and larger
transnational projects.

The meeting will be limited to one or two participants from each country.
In general, participants should come from the 22 countries which are
members of the European Science Foundation (for further details of the ESF,
see http://www.esf.org).  We already have participants from the following
ESF member states:

	Belgium		Czech Republic	Denmark
	Finland		Germany		Hungary
	Ireland*	Italy		Netherlands
	Norway		Sweden		Turkey
	United Kingdom

(*=based in Belfast, but an Ireland-wide project).  We are therefore
particularly seeking participants from the following countries:

	Austria		France		Greece
	Iceland		Poland		Portugal
	Slovenia	Spain		Switzerland

WE WOULD BE PLEASED TO HEAR FROM COMPUTERISED HISTORIC BOUNDARY MAPPING
PROJECTS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, INCLUDING COUNTRIES ALREADY REPRESENTED.
HOWEVER, WE BELIEVE WE ARE ALREADY IN CONTACT WITH MOST SUCH PROJECTS
(Existing participants include a representative of the US County Atlas
Project in Chicago, and we hope to also include a representative of the
Canadian Families Project).

FOR THE NINE COUNTRIES LISTED ABOVE, WE WOULD ALSO BE INTERESTED TO HEAR
FROM RESEARCHERS WORKING ON THE HISTORY OF BOUNDARIES, WHETHER OR NOT THEY
ARE USING COMPUTERS, OR FROM RESEARCHERS INTERESTED IN STARTING SUCH A
PROJECT.  From past experience, such researchers are most likely to be
historical demographers but other projects that are interested in using
boundary mapping include a project on saints' cults and historians of the
book trade.

ANYONE CONTACTING US SHOULD BE CLEAR THAT THE FLORENCE WORKSHOP IS _NOT_ AN
OPPORTUNITY TO PRESENT CONVENTIONAL RESEARCH PAPERS IN PLEASANT
SURROUNDINGS AT THE ESF'S EXPENSE:  You will be asked to gather systematic
information on your country's sources for historic boundary mapping (old
maps, lists of boundary changes) and on major sources to be mapped
(historic censuses, vital statistics, taxation records;  in particular,
what geographical units do these relate to?).

Co-Ordination Group:
===================

Michael Guerke		(European University Institute, Florence)
Humphrey Southall	(Queen Mary College, University of London;
			from January 1st, University of Portsmouth)
Gunnar Thorvaldsen	(Norwegian Historical Data Centre, Tromso)

(Please reply to Humphrey Southall: [log in to unmask];  this e-mail
address will continue to work after Janaury).


========================================================
Dr. Humphrey Southall,
Reader in Geography,
Department of Geography,
Queen Mary and Westfield College,
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON,
Mile End Road,
London E1 4NS,  ENGLAND

Direct Line:  0171-975-5413
Dept. Fax:    0181-981-6276




%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%