Mapping historical Mississauga: Uncovering the city's changing landscapes online using historical maps and digital data

The City of Mississauga is very young by Canadian standards, becoming a town in 1968 and reaching city status in 1974. In this short time, Mississauga has evolved from a loose rural grouping of villages and hamlets with a combined population of about 95,000 to being the sixth largest city in Canada with a population today of over 720,000. For better or worse, Mississauga is often held up as a case study of post-World War II urban change, and as an emergent Canadian suburb. One of the best resources for exploring this change is through the use of maps and digital data. The Scholars GeoPortal, a geospatial data discovery and delivery service, provides access to hundreds of maps and geospatial datasets related both to modern day and historical Mississauga, some of which also provide coverage on a national scale. Our presentation will highlight many of these resources and outline how they can provide research impact in various disciplines. By allowing researchers to track the development of Mississauga using maps and data that span the most important decades of the city's history, the Scholars GeoPortal provides a means to discover, analyse, visualize, and teach historical Mississauga.