For anyone else confused (this took me the longest time, skimming the comments and then opening the article): no, indeed, this has nothing to do with GPS. They mean coordinates, not satellites. It's about indexing locations of old maps
What they mean is they use GPS to get their current coordinates, and then superimpose that on old maps. Because without GPS, how does the Allmaps Here app get your coordinates in order to plot it on old maps?
It is FAR more useful on a smartphone with GPS but it also works on a desktop connection if the geolocation of your IP is accurate. For me it was spot on.
I wonder what the sources of the maps are. They seem most plentiful around the Netherlands amd Belgium. Also, the map for Stockholm had what looked like handwritten Dutch text om it.
Can I plugin my app here? If on Android, use navigateanymap.eu, snap a picture of that map from 1565, match some features using OpenStreetMap (although things like rivers, roads and buildings may be different from that year, making matching more difficult) and walk using that old map.
A bit off topic, but the proliferation of maps and GPS is not celebrated enough IMHO. It's such a mind shift regarding freedom of movement - as a kid (1990s), going somewhere new carried a strong risk of getting lost, so we rarely ventured far. Even if we had maps, they were not detailed enough, and it was difficult to figure out where you are exactly. Many from my parent's generation (now in their 60s, 70s) never learned to work with maps (with or without GPS) which limits them to travel alone only to places they already know. There are also other factors (ability to call for help, looking up your travel connections etc.), but IMHO the detailed maps + GPS is the biggest factor in this mindshift where travelling/exploring anywhere is easy and accessible to anyone.
Yes, pretty amazing. While I did have a couple of free tourist maps, I planned and executed a 1700km road trip to New Zealand basically using Google Maps on my laptop and then simply navigated on my phone. It seems incredible that you could entrust everyday's travel plans using this and it just worked. Sure you had to make sure you had downloaded maps (or at least cached) ahead of time for spotty networks. Only 25 years or so ago you absolutely had to have paper maps (and know how to read them) to embark on such a venture
A few of them definitely aren't lined up right, but wow! What a fun thing! Today I learned the bike path that runs by my apartment was once a railroad.
Readit News
It's really interesting to see how far off these old charts are when overlaid on modern GIS data, but still pretty impressive for the time.
I also noticed that the search is broken
https://map.geo.admin.ch/#/map?lang=en¢er=2682327.37,124...
https://maps.nls.uk
With a bit of a london focus (since that's where I live)
https://www.layersoflondon.org/
https://mapco.net/
https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/agas.htm
Finally this site:
https://www.oldmapsonline.org/
Map platforms from Brazilian cities that allow browsing with old map layers:
Curitiba 1857
https://geocuritiba.ippuc.org.br/portal/apps/webappviewer/in...
São Paulo 1930
https://geosampa.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/PaginasPublicas/_SBC.a...