Representing cultural landscapes creates specific problems in the sense that it is necessary to find a code and the tools to suit their complex characteristics and dynamic qualities. The contrast between their different forms of spatial expression (they can be continuous, juxtaposed and linear, compact and dispersed, with very blurred boundaries, etc.), their different types (industrial, urban, symbolic, agricultural, mixed, etc.), the complex parameters that give them value (both tangible and intangible) and even the broad spectrum of elements that make up their structure (geographical, architectural, social, environmental, etc.) make it necessary to conduct in-depth methodological research in order to achieve a suitable cartographic representation.
The project sets out to digitally represent and process, in a georeferenced database (GIS), an indicative selection of Spanish cultural landscapes that have been compiled by the Spanish Institute of Cultural Heritage, along with the Autonomous Communities, as part of the National Plan for Cultural Landscape. This work includes recording and locating pre-selected cultural assets, accompanied by a scalable protocol for graphic and textual information. Similarly, it also includes a spatial analysis of every landscape at geographic scale (1:10,000).
This should result in a cartographic inventory that includes both the specifics and commonalities of different landscapes. The purpose of this innovative representational code is, therefore, to express which cultural values can be found at each site. Similarly, it aims to innovate creative visualisation procedures in order to improve the communication abilities of maps. The project is supported by CartoDB.