Cultural Heritage on the Map

WatWasWaar.nl is a recently-released national platform for historical-geographical information in the Netherlands. This joint initiative of over 25 cultural heritage institutions provides the general public with easy access to historical data with a location component. WatWasWaar.nl caters for the broad interest in local history that was reconfirmed by recent research conducted by the Dutch government (Wubs, 2006a, Wubs, 2006b and Huysmans, 2007). This research concluded that the main interest of the general public regarding cultural heritage on-line focuses on family history and local history. The adventure of developing this simple, smart, fast and fun map-based publication platform started early in 2005. At that time Google Maps and Google Earth were still to be launched, and map-based applications were 'for professionals'. Topics addressed are the application itself; focus points in the development process; the unique features of the application: the combination of the elements of time and space; the content; the users; policy goals; first results; and future plans.