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Historical Map of Melbourne

Primary supervisor

David Taniar

 

 

 

Student cohort

Double Semester

Aim/outline

Population growth in Melbourne demands the development of new dwellings and infrastructures. The development requires significant planning, and the historical geospatial data such as maps can be used as an important factor for decision making.  One fundamental element of maps is roads, which are represented as complex networks. While online maps like Google Maps accurately depict current geospatial features, they do not show how Melbourne’s roads looked decades ago. Understanding the evolution of road infrastructure is pivotal for studying urban growth.

This project aims to curate a historical map of greater Melbourne, showing its yearly road development from 1966 to 2024. This map will serve as a foundational resource for analysing urban development and assisting policy makers for infrastructure strategic planning. This project demonstrates data curation and librarianship within the geospatial domain, highlighting the importance of preserving historical geospatial information for future research and planning.

Required knowledge

  • Familiar with OpenStreetMap (OSM) data
  • Familiar with map data formats, such as KML, etc
  • Familiar with map visualisation, such as QGIS
  • Familiar with spatial DBMS, such as PostGIS