Spatial & Geographic Analysis¶

March 2026

Draft

This activity guide is under development. The structure is in place but the content is not yet complete.

What this task involves¶

Spatial analysis in humanities research encompasses mapping historical and archaeological sites, working with gazetteers and place-name databases, reasoning about geographic relationships (routes, distances, visibility, land use), and producing visualisations of spatial data. It ranges from simple place identification to complex GIS-based analysis.

Where AI tools help¶

AI tools can assist with geocoding place names (including historical and variant forms), generating mapping code, converting between coordinate systems, structuring spatial data from unstructured text, and reasoning about geographic relationships. For scholars building digital maps or working with geographic databases, AI coding tools (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI) can accelerate the technical work.

What to watch out for¶

Models may confidently place sites at incorrect coordinates, confuse places with similar names, or apply modern geographic knowledge anachronistically. Historical geography requires specialist knowledge of changing borders, shifting coastlines, variant toponyms, and contested identifications that models do not reliably possess.

Worked examples¶

Coming soon.