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SPARQLing Scottish history

Aspects of Scottish history and culture using Wikidata and SPARQL

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Rail disasters

The Wikipedia article about Wormit station mentioned a rail crash there in 1955. I looked at other crash articles and their corresponding Wikidata items to obtain the data items appropriate for one Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 08 April 2024 Category ScottishHistory Tags Events ScottishHistory Wikidata SPARQL

Sundials

There is a Wikipedia page here which indicates that sundials in Scotland had features distinct from those elsewhere. Here is a query which maps sundials across the country. Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 24 March 2024 Category ScottishHistory Tags SPARQL Wikidata map

Paintings in Scottish galleries

I remembered a page I previously created on Commons, which provides a view of paintings in Scottish public galleries: link. It is based on a Wikidata SPARQL query, which ListeriaBot runs every few Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 19 March 2024 Category ScottishCulture Tags Wikidata Listeria

Industrial past

Industrial past
From the 1750s until around 40 years ago, Scotland was marked by clusters of iron, steel and manufacturing heavy industries. Little remains. Attempting to map these using Wikidata and SPARQL shows Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 13 March 2024 Category ScottishHistory Tags SPARQL Wikidata map DataProblems

Scottish foods (again)

Scottish foods (again)
Since my previous post and graphic about Scottish foodstuffs, I noticed that Camp Coffee was missing - and having noticed that, realised that Irn Bru was also missing. Such important parts of the Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 07 March 2024 Category ScottishCulture Tags Wikidata SPARQL food

Tolbooths

Last July I looked at Tolbooths in Scottish towns, including some Wikidata adjustments to distinguish them, as the data had become fankled with Tollbooths, which are not the same thing. I posted this Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 03 March 2024 Category ScottishInfrastructure Tags Wikidata ScottishHistory Civics map

Co-operative societies

Co-operative societies
Attempting to visualise how Co-operative Societies spread then consolidated through the 19th and 20th centuries was only partially successful. The data available were rather lacking. For example, Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 27 February 2024 Category ScottishHistory Tags SPARQL Wikidata Wikipedia Civics

Observatories

Observatories
Another visualisation using Wikidata to show aspects of Scottish Culture. This map highlights the various Observatory buildings around Scotland. Query Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 19 February 2024 Category ScottishHistory Tags SPARQL Wikidata Civics map

Road and railway bridges

A SPARQL query to map category A & B listed road and rail bridges in Scotland: SELECT DISTINCT (?showLabel as ?layer) ?loc ?pic ?picLabel ?picURI ?herlistLabel ?cooncilLabel WHERE { SERVICE Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 17 February 2024 Category ScottishInfrastructure Tags SPARQL Wikidata ScottishHistory Civics map

Querying Scottish Government data

Although the focus here is on using Wikidata to visualise / understand aspects of the historical cultural environment in Scotland, this also leads into side-exploration of other data /visualisations Read more
adminAuthor admin Posted on 14 February 2024 Category ScottishInfrastructure Tags SPARQL
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About

This blog provides Wikidata and SPARQL views of aspects of Scottish history and culture. These have usually been previously posted to Mastodon (through which comments are welcome).
RSS notification of new posts is available using https://allyd.co.uk/scotdata/feed/rss

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