Quid est haec tabula?

Who are you and why have you done this?

This is a demonstration project for Open Latin. We want to show how the use of public domain materials, open projects and community resources can benefit an under-supported language like Latin, in the hope that others will join in.

We think open, sharing content is a very powerful approach, that can produce more and better learning materials with less time and money, and can help different language communities support each other too.

What is this map?

This is a map with just Latin names, where we have them, of cities, towns, statues, museums, ruins and so on. This is to show how many Latin names exist, and where they are recorded as publicly accessible and reusable information.

This map is possible because of the community mapping project Open Street Map, and the database of Latin place names contained within the Wikidata project, run by Wikimedia. In particular, as the number of places with a Vicipaedia page has grown, so has the number of Latin names for places contained in Wikidata.

These are amazing projects. Without them this particular project, which is tiny in comparison, would not begin to be possible.

Finally, the commercial map publisher MapTiler have released a multilingual mapping facility, which draws on these two sources to allow us to lightly modify their designs to display a Latin-only map.

How do I add a missing Latin name?

See our page on this at Nomina.

I found a non-Latin name, why?

Sometimes people have (wrongly) entered a non-Latin name label into the Latin language field on Wikidata. If this looks like a mistake, please check and if it is a mistake, remove the label at Wikidata.

I want my own Latin / other language map

Feel free! It is pretty easy to modify the maps provided by MapTiler. The main thing you will need to do is decide whether you want other language content, using the advanced editing. If not, then strip out the tags so that only {name:la} appears in the "Text layout properties" for the various items that display names within the chosen design.

I think you should change your map 

We are open to suggestions about how and what should be displayed, within the confines of what is possible with MapTiller. It is possible to import other datasets for instance. Or, if you have bigger ideas, using different map rendering tools, let us know.

I don't have time but want to help

We take donations via Patreon! Everything we do and publish will always be released as reusable materials, so your money goes to support the whole Latin language community.