Records from the past
Keeping track of our surroundings and our history helps us to retain the heritage so important to Ireland and its sons and daughters that have ventured to foreign lands. That’s why people are so fascinated by our historic mapping archive at OSI.
The Historic map viewer on our website osi.ie is a very simple example of a GIS in action, overlaying mapping from the last two centuries onto the modern day data. An Post have also created a product for uniquely identifying each building in the State, the Geodirectory, a potential pre-cursor to a Postcode system for Ireland.
OSi boundary data, mapping and photography are essential in grouping, collecting and managing statistics and data which can be effectively analysed and published using powerful GIS software. The CSO (Central Statistics Office) developed, in conjunction with OSi, a brand new set of boundaries to more finitely examine statistics and maintain accurate records, known as the Small Area Dataset, which is exactly that, bigger geographical areas sub divided into smaller ones.