The MESH project will provide, and facilitate, new visions of historical space. Based on outstanding documentary and cartographic resources in Edinburgh, the project team will deploy digital technologies to develop new types of historical maps based on social, cultural, political, religious, military, environmental, architectural and economic information. The project will be structured around the emergent themes of the city's spatial evolution, and guided by the operating principles of cartographic projects eg administrative areas, cadastral plans, and jurisdictions. The Edinburgh Atlas (E-ATLAS) will provide a new digital atlas of Edinburgh structured around six temporal periods: the early city; medieval city c.1300-1550; the early modern city 1550-1680; Enlightenment Edinburgh, 1680-1820; the 'modern' city, c.1820-1914; the capital city, 1914-2000. The changing nature and structure of the city will form the basis to 30 interpretive essays organised around key themes with analytical emphasis on the processes of change in a spatial context. The E-ATLAS will provide a world-leading innovative intellectual product. The web-based e-atlas provides an internationally innovative research facility. The emphasis will be on customisable maps based on the NLS' 500 digitised Edinburgh maps. As demonstrated by the highly successful and publicly acclaimed open-source tools piloted by the AHRC-funded Visualising Urban Geographies Knolwedge Transfer Project (PI Rodger) (see Attachments for Impact of VUG) users' historical data will be plotted on historical maps appropriate to the period, and saved in personal accounts accessible either by individuals or groups. This customisable web-based delivery will be suitable for researchers at all levels; it will be available to the general public, and by extending the historical frame will have far reaching consequences for scholars and the public. This provision of an e-atlas facility is a central objective based on a key principle of the project: public accessibility and scholarly additionality (and is consistent with the AHRC 2011-15 strategic emphasis on the Digital Economy and Creative Hubs). By facilitating the publication of newly-created maps of Edinburgh on a variety of topics, the project will demonstrate the utility of spatial analysis for different disciplines. It will assist the development of linkages between acadenic and non-academic users. The MESH project connects with two other AHRC objectives. First, MESH provides a stimulus to public history by facilitating spatial analysis in a historical setting through the use of user-friendly mapping tools. The project will bring spatial analysis firmly within the grasp of local history societies and voluntary organisations by means of Knowledge Transfer both in a technical environment of web-based mapping, and by providing examples of best practice from experienced historians. Second, the project provides civic authorities, museum curators, and planners with mapping tools (e-atlas) designed which will assist their professional work as they seek to understand the way Scotland's capital evolved. Public interest in the MESH project is significant and widespread. Representatives of Edinburgh's World Heritage Trust, City Council, RCAHMS, Edinburgh Central Library, and local historical societies have expressed strong support. Graduate and undergraduate students have much to gain from the spatial approach to historical analysis.' In addition to history and geosciences, scholars in several humanities and social sciences disciplines - divinity, literature, archaeology, architecture, criminology - and in biological sciences have expressed considerable interest in the project. In sum, MESH will stimulate and provide a new research resource (E-ATLAS); advance research capacity (e-atlas); develop an online research facility; and enhance user engagement and inter-institutional collaboration within and beyond Scotland's capital.