SCHOLARS HAVE MADE maps based on the information recorded in Domesday Book for more than a century, H. C. Darby's Domesday Geography series being the most famous and comprehensive body of Domesday maps to date. It is now, however, more than thirty years since the publication of the final volume in Darby's series. The decades since have seen dramatic changes in our understanding of Domesday Book and how it was made, as well as in the capabilities and ubiquity of computers and digital mapping. Indeed, three different web-based systems allowing geographical interrogation and mapping of Domesday materials appeared in 2010. In this chapter, I examine how various geospatial technologies and digital datasets based on Domesday Book make it possible to query, map and analyse Domesday material, investigating the geography of Domesday Book and of Domesday England, in new ways.

I begin by defining the kinds of geospatial technologies to which I will refer. The first and most fundamental, of course, is the traditional map – whether drawn, printed or projected on paper or a computer screen. A map is a selective, two-dimensional, graphic representation of information about phenomena (physical, environmental, social, cultural or any combination thereof) in which the information is explicitly tied to the spatial location of the phenomena as measured in reference to the surface of the Earth. By traditional map, I mean a map in which the informational content and scale are fixed.

Next is web mapping which, as the name implies, comprises systems whereby maps are made available via the World Wide Web and are viewed in Internet browsing software. Google MapsTM and Microsoft's Bing MapsTM are two wellknown examples. Current web mapping systems allow a far greater degree of interactivity than do traditional maps: users can pan around to focus on different areas, zoom in and out to a variety of different scales, and often it is possible to click on a feature shown on the map to see more information about it. Similar to these are so-called virtual globe or geobrowser systems, such as Google EarthTM or NASA World Wind. Such software enables users to view a wide variety of satellite and aerial photographic imagery, as well as other types of spatially located data, using a quasi-three-dimensional perspective.