Georeferencing and Digitizing a Bird’s Eye View Map
Historic Chicago Maps: Community Settlements
Georeferencing
Georeferencing a Bird’s Eyeview Map
On this page, I’ll present the process of georeferencing a bird’s eye view map into an electronic map, with all its components.
This map was originally created by Wesley Akin Hotchkiss, at the University of Chicago, and can be found at the Map Collection, Regenstein Library. The year of publication is not confirmed, but estimated to be 1948.
Following is a scan of the original map: a birds’ eye view map of Chicago, from 1940, showing the distribution of Catholic Churches relative to total population, as well as estimated location of the churches.
This map has two types of data: the number of persons per church in red, orange, and yellow; and the approximate location and number of the churches in each community area (inside Chicago), or municipality (suburbs of Chicago).
When looking closely, we notice a thicker black line within the map, which corresponds to the 1940s boundary of the city of Chicago. We base the georeferencing on this boundary, as its shape is easily identified. We are also able to identify the suburban municipalities by comparing the names on the current electronic map to the reference list on the left side of the map.