Wednesday, April 16, 2014

#WMhack - last years demo

At last years hackathon, one highlight was the map showing the history of Islamic states. It makes clever use of Wikipedia and it makes information available in Arabic and English.

This year the hackathon will be in Zurich and one of the main subjects are maps and how it relates to Wikidata. The history of Islamic states is relevant in all languages and it would be cool when we can update this application to make use of Wikidata.

In this map,  all the different states have an overlay. There must be a map for each state at each interval. This app shows the different rulers at a time.

When we have such overlays available to us, we can do more than show the rulers, the centres of power. We could show the battles, the wars, the conquests. They happen in between the changes of the maps.

Maps that show areas grow and wane in time are another area where Wikidata can be a real help if only because it links to information in so many languages.
Thanks,
      GerardM

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