Computing Place
Computing Place is a new research initiative aimed at building rich, computable descriptions of places by linking environmental and cultural data. Every terrestrial Earth surface location has an environmental signature—shaped by drainage basins, elevation, climate, and ecoregions—but cultural narratives and historical developments follow their own logic. By computing statistical and thematic signatures for environment and culture systematically and comparing how they align or diverge, we hope to enable new forms of spatial and ‘placial’ analysis for gazetteers and digital humanities research in numerous fields.
The platform is being developed modularly. EDOP (Environmental Dimensions of Place) is the first component, now live with 190,000+ watershed profiles using HydroATLAS data, digital elevation models, and ecoregion classifications. CDOP (Cultural Dimensions of Place) will add encoded anthropological and semantic dimensions through ethnographic datasets and textual sources. The Computing Place platform will link these complementary signals, offering Application Programming Interface (API) endpoints and interactive tools that existing spatial humanities projects can consume to enrich their place records.
