Neogeography

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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Web mapping. (Discuss)

Neogeography literally means "new geography", and is commonly applied to the usage of geographical techniques and tools used for personal and community activities or for utilization by a non-expert group of users. Application domains of neogeography are typically not formal or analytical.

1 History
2 User-generated Geospatial Content
3 Discussion about the definition
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

The coining of Neogeography is attributed to Di-Ann Eisnor of Platial[1] and arose with the concept of Web 2.0 around the increased public appeal of mapping and geospatial technologies that occurred with the release of such tools as "slippy maps" such as Google Maps and also with the decreased cost of geolocated mobile devices such as GPS units. Subsequently, the use of geospatial technologies began to see increased integration with non-geographically focused applications.

The term and field owes much of its inspiration to the Locative media movement that sought to expand the use of location-based technologies to personal expression and society.

Traditional GIS Geographic Information Systems historically have developed tools and techniques targeted towards formal applications that require precision and accuracy. By contrast, Neogeography tends to apply to the areas of approachable, colloquial applications. The two realms can have overlap as the same problems are presented to different sets of users: experts and non-experts.

[edit] User-generated Geospatial Content

Neogeography has also been connected with the increase in user-generated geospatial content, closely related to Volunteered Geographic Information. This can be active collection of data such as OpenStreetMap, or passive collection of user-data such as Flickr tags for folksonomic toponyms.

[edit] Discussion about the definition

There is currently much debate about the scope and application of Neogeography in the web mapping, geography, and GIS fields. Some of this discussion considers neogeography to be the ease of use of geographic tools and interfaces while other points focus on the domains of application.

Neogeography is not limited to a specific technology and is not strictly web-based, so is not synonymous with Web Mapping though it is commonly conceived as such.