The Levant Moves South, 1750–1829

Map title

The Levant Moves South, 1750–1829

Author

Omer Shadmi

Owner

Zoe Beenstock

Publication date / version

Version 1 (publication date to be added)

Geographic coverage

The Levant and neighbouring regions: from Constantinople and the Aegean in the north to Upper Egypt and Sennar in the south, and from Egypt to Basra in the east

CRS

Lambert azimuthal equal-area, centred on 38°N, 25°E (+proj=laea +lat_0=38 +lon_0=25 +x_0=0 +y_0=0 +datum=WGS84 +units=m); no EPSG code

Dimensions

Three panels of 99.9 × 123.5 mm each

Map file

Zoe m1.png

Software

QGIS 3.40; Claude (Anthropic); Kepler.gl (data exploration)

Documentation date / method

29 October 2026. Written in retrospect from the project files and the records of the Claude conversations. Documented by The Spatial Studio (spatial-studio.net)

Permanent link

https://spatial-studio.net/maps/the-levant-moves-south/

Stage

What was done

AI / Human

1.

Dataset of mentions of the Levant in a list of British periodicals by keywords

Human (Inna Kizhner)

2.

Creating a spatialized dataset of places included in the original dataset: geocoding the database by automated reconciliation with Wikidata and other datasets with constant review and decisions making about what places to include, right reconciliation, and right names to use.

Human (Omer Shadmi, Zoe Beenstock)

3.

Visualizing the spatialized database using Kepler.gl

Human (Omer Shadmi)

4.

Exploring insights in the visualization

Human (Zoe and Omer)

5.

An AI agent created by Zoe to search for insights in Kepler.

AI (Claude)

6.

Exploration of important insights using Claude and in dialogue with Omer. Three different maps were chosen for production

Humans (Zoe)

7.

Creation of map drafts by Zoe’s Claude

AI (Claude)

8

Omer sent Zoe a prompt to produce a QGIS project he can design.

Human (Omer)

9

Zoe’s Claude produced a QGIS project

AI (Claude)

10

Review of the AI-generated QGIS project for CRS, locations, layers sources, labels, and data

Human

11

Design rounds using a Claude skill Omer created: options for the basemap (colour, relief, sea texture), fonts and symbols, shown on all three maps, while the data is locked. After each round Omer chose and refined the options.

AI (Claude) generates options; Human (Omer) selects

12

Change of CRS from an equirectangular projection (true scale at 31°N, as in the creator’s figure) to a Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection centred on 38°N, 25°E, used for all three maps. Claude proposed it and rendered both versions for comparison; Omer chose it.

AI (Claude) proposes and renders; Human (Omer) decides

13

Further design rounds, including five options for making the links between places easier to read (line weight, opacity, colour, dashes and dot size). Omer asked for a calmer, lighter look.

AI (Claude) generates options; Human (Omer) selects and gives feedback

14

Applying a list of corrections to the dataset: about 16 decisions on place names and coordinates, taken one at a time (for example Bassora to Basra, Istanbul to Constantinople). A change log was kept for Zoe.

AI (Claude) proposes and logs; Human (Omer) decides

15

Building the M1 QGIS project from the corrected dataset, based on the M0 project: a 16:9 slide with three panels, and a scale bar and north arrow in each. Claude fixed a projection error and a rendering problem during the build.

AI (Claude)

16

Opening the project in QGIS and reporting problems: only two of the three panels showed, and labels were too faint and small. Claude fixed both.

Human (Omer) reports; AI (Claude) fixes

17

Fitting each panel to its own period’s places, and placing labels with a custom program so that labels do not overlap each other, rings, links, scale bars or north arrows. Nothing else was changed.

AI (Claude), at Omer’s request

18

Fine-tuning in QGIS following Claude’s step-by-step instructions: deleting some labels, fixing a line style that was too thin, colouring region names by north or south, removing the brackets from “Nile” and adding a Red Sea label. Claude also checked that the subtitle describes line width correctly.

Human (Omer), guided by AI (Claude)

19

Recording the sources and licences of the data and fonts in the project README.

AI (Claude)

Data

Source

Places and other data

Researcher’s dataset of place-mentions in four British periodicals, 1750–1829: The Gentleman’s Magazine, The Monthly Review, The London Magazine and The Universal Magazine. Data mining: Dr. Inna Kizhner.

Land and sea polygons

Natural Earth 1:50m (public domain)