Extraction and dissemination of historical geospatial data from early maps are major goals of historical geographic information systems (HGISs) in the context of the spatial humanities. This paper illustrates the process of interpreting, georeferencing, organizing, and visualizing the content of a historical map of Cyprus in the context of GISs and highlights the development of a national-scale spatial database of the island in the 19th century. This method was applied to Lord Kitchener’s historical map of Cyprus (published in 1885), which is considered the product of the first scientific topographic survey of Cyprus, is rich in geographic information about the area, and covers the entire island at a scale of 1:63,360. Previous attempts to create historical geodatabases have either focused on small areas or, when conducted on a national scale, have been thematically focused. The positional accuracy of the map was found to be 1.08 mm in map units, which was equivalent to 68.76 m on the ground. Accordingly, the main categories of geographic content (land cover, administrative units, settlements, transportation/communication networks, stream networks/water bodies, points of interest, annotations) were digitized from the georeferenced historical map. The Web-based application developed in this study supported the visualization of the historical geographic content of the map and its comparison with modern basemaps. The creation of the geodatabase presented in the study provides a template for similar studies and a basis for further development of the historical geodatabase of Cyprus.

Abstract. The paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing project that combines historical cartographic and economic sources on Cyprus through the employment of geospatial analysis. The main sources are: the 1883 trigonometrical survey of the island by Horatio Herbert Kitchener; the 1572 fiscal survey and 1832/33 property survey by the Ottomans; and the 1931 British agricultural census. The Ottoman and British censuses, different though they are and separated by three and a half centuries, provide vital information on production, economic activity, population, and toponymy. The project correlates this data with the detailed recording of topographical, hydrological, and land use features of the Kitchener map, which constitutes an extremely close depiction of Ottoman conditions given that the transformation of the countryside witnessed during the British colonial period was not yet initiated. This allows the identification of certain constants in the Cypriot environment and landscape. The paper presents the interdisciplinary methodological challenges the project has encountered and proposes a framework for the combination of these different datasets and their analysis in order to better record and understand certain long-term patterns in the Cypriot economy, environment and landscape. It uses viticulture as a case study for the visualisation of data to determine the spatial distribution of vines in the historical long term. Finally, the paper situates its conclusions within broader historiographical discussions on the historical development of viticulture in the Mediterranean.

Viticulture has historically been an important part of the social and economic life in the Mediterranean, while wine is reckoned among the oldest documented trades. The aim of the study is to record, evaluate and analyze spatial data from historical sources in order to gain insights into the dynamics of the viticultural landscape from the beginning of the Ottoman period to the present day. The study was based on (a) three historical maps published in 1885, 1942 and 1969, (b) records from historical surveys—two from the Ottoman period (1572 fiscal survey, 1832/33 property survey) and the British agricultural census of 1931, (c) present-day records from the vineyard survey of 2009 carried out by the Republic of Cyprus. In the beginning of the study period the center of viticulture was well established within the area of the southern and eastern slopes of Troodos massif. The vineyards expanded mainly around the same growing area until WW2 when they gradually began to be relocated in southwest direction to lower altitudes. This long-term trajectory of spatial patterns was driven by external demand for the product but also by the interplay of environmental, topographic and cultural factors, as well as by the state’s policy framework which largely reflected long-term Mediterranean-wide patterns.