And now it's a game as well! Guess the city! bertspaan.nl/buildings/play

The original map caused my 5 minutes of internet fame.

It was me!

Data comes from an existing source (Dutch building + address registry) but I created the vector and raster tile layers myself. Source code is here: github.com/bertspaan/bu.... I'll add a link to this repo on the website as well.

The new map uses a combination of raster tiles and vector tiles to make sure all buildings will always be visible. You can't do this with just vector tiles: a single vector tile would be 10s of megabytes on low zooms. Raster tiles when zoomed out and vector tiles when zoomed in solves this!

You can still explore the first version of the map here: code.waag.org/buildings/. Then, there were 9,866,539 buildings in the Netherlands. Right now, there are 1,467,339 more: 11,333,878 in total. The new version of the map lets you see where new buildings have been built in the past 10 years.

All 11.333.878 buildings in the Netherlands

12½ years ago, I made a map of all the buildings in the Netherlands. Unexpectedly, people loved it!
Ever since, I have been wanting to make an updated version of the map. Newer data, higher resolution, more interactive! I never got around to it, until last week: bertspaan.nl/buildings

What I will add soon: support for loading IIIF resources with embedded georeference annotations.

Do you mean using Allmaps Viewer to show a annotations (text, vector) on a georeferenced map? I have no plans adding that - although I don't think it should be very complicated to build, I do not want Allmaps Viewer to turn into a GIS viewer with lots of lines and points and colors.

Curator or Associate Curator of Maps & Geography - Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library

This is a really special map curator JOB working w/@en-dash.bsky.social at @bplmaps.bsky.social. Apply by March 30th. #glam #maps 🗃️

www.leventhalmap.org/about/jobs/c...

Thrilled to be at Fantastic Futures w/@bertspaan.nl to talk about working w/digitized map collections as research data!

You can explore VERY large datasets of text from maps with our prototype #dataviz interface at text-on-maps-viz.allmaps.workers.dev

Featuring Rumsey collection maps!

#ff2025

Katherine McDonough

Bert Spaan

Allmaps + IIIF

@bertspaan.nl (Allmaps.org) & @kmcdono.bsky.social speaking on “Text on Maps: From Collection Discovery to Research Data” at #FF2025 bit.ly/44bmrJE / learn more about the @iiif.bsky.social / Allmaps partnership here: bit.ly/446uNlN

screenshot of announcement for Allmaps + IIIF Partnership reading "Open up your map collections: Announcing the Allmaps - IIIF Partnership", with mini, multicolored map outlines and the Allmaps and IIIF logos.

Congratulations to Allmaps (led by @bertspaan.nl & Jules Schoonman) + @iiif.bsky.social on the announcement of this partnership. It's a fantastic step towards a sustainable, open, digital maps infrastructure and data ecosystem.

Learn more at allmaps.org/iiif-partner... & iiif.io/news/2025/11...

Look where I am on this map! Find historic maps around your current location

Thanks for sharing Shannon! This is such sad news, but the Allmaps project will continue, we have funding from institutions in the Netherlands and Belgium for this year and next year! And you should try this new website I just made: here.allmaps.org

We had so many exciting plans for the remainder of the grant—this is truly disappointing news. I'll really miss collaborating with the Leventhal Center and the American Geographical Society Library, but the Allmaps project will continue!

If maps from your city are missing, you can make them available in Allmaps Here by georeferencing new maps with Allmaps Editor: editor.allmaps.org

Allmaps Here can plot GeoJSON routes on historic maps. Create a route and walk around on a map from 1630:

Look where I am on this map! Find historic maps around your current location

See your location on a historic map and share your location on a with friend: "Look, I'm here on this map of Amsterdam! Where are you? here.allmaps.org/maps/7c330e2...

Allmaps Here

The first version of Allmaps Here is live! Explore historic maps around you and see where you’d be standing—centuries ago. Try Allmaps Here yourself: here.allmaps.org

catching up with @bertspaan.nl who gave me all these fun @latest.allmaps.org stickers. New version of Allmaps Editor powered by Terra Draw coming soon 😎

I'm using Cloudflare Workers and their @cloudflare/pages-plugin-vercel-og package to generate these images. Next up: all other Allmaps websites!

Allmaps Latest The latest maps georeferenced with Allmaps Editor

This week, I'm working on creating dynamic Open Graph images for various parts of allmaps.org. The first is for latest.allmaps.org, a small website that shows the last 250 maps georeferenced with Allmaps.

I've been very quiet on Bluesky. It's time to change that! Hello, my name is Bert, I'll post about maps and computers.

bdon.org/2024/12/04/a...