Ptolemy GIS

This website is dedicated to GIS analysis and visualization of historical data from the classical "Geography" by Claudius Ptolemy.

  1. Our paper called A Mathematical Method for Visualizing Ptolemy's India in Modern GIS Tools explains our initial work in this area. It was presented at the 10th Jubilee Conference + Workshop "Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage" in Corfu, May 27-29, 2015. Its journal version was published in e-Perimetron, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 13-34 (2016).
  2. Our second paper called Enhanced Mathematical Method for Visualizing Ptolemy’s Arabia in Modern GIS Tools was presented at the 11th ICA Conference "Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage" in Riga, Latvia, Apr. 20-22, 2016. Its journal version was published in e-Perimetron, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 1-25 (2020).
  3. Our third paper called The Fertile Crescent in Ptolemy’s "Geography": a new digital reconstruction for modern GIS tools was presented at the 12th ICA Conference "Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage" in Venice, Italy, Apr. 26-28, 2017.
  4. Our fourth paper entitled Ptolemy’s Britain and Ireland: A New Digital Reconstruction was presented at the ICC 2017 Conference in Washington, DC, July 2-7, 2017.
  5. Our fifth paper, GIS Analysis and Digital Reconstruction of Ptolemy’s India beyond the Ganges, Serike and Sinae was presented at the 13th ICA Conference "Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage" in Madrid, Spain, April 18-20, 2018.
  6. Our sixth paper, Iterative Reconstruction of Ptolemy’s West Africa using Modern GIS Analysis was presented at the 14th ICA Conference "Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage" in Thessaloniki, Greece, May 8-10, 2019.

We are also making available our source code, and some of our initial KML files.