Swiss Historical Maps Allow Journey Through Time In Your Browser

An anonymous reader writes "The Swiss Federal Office of Topography has published a complete set of digitized historical maps from 1938 to 2011. The twist: a browser application allows you to create a time travel movie at any place in Switzerland for any zoom level. As an example, you can see the recession of Europe's biggest glacier over the last 75 years. The application is the most recent effort of the Swiss Government to make geodata freely available to the public at no cost using open source software and will include maps dating as far back as 1838."

Fantastic Idea

[Unknown1337]

The implications this could have for history records and documenting future changing is amazing. The idea of making this information public domain and easily accessible could drive both knowledge of the country and maybe broaden the understanding of time's effect on landscape, etc. with a huge visual impact.

Re:Google Maps

[mikael]

Extend that to photographs and postcards. I've seen postcards of villages from 90 years ago, and they haven't changed. The most haunting one was to see pictures of the shop-owners and their children. The shops and homes were the same with minor modifications. But it was so strange to realize that none of those people were around any more.