Google Fusion Tables is an experimental data processing application created by Google Labs. It is made available as a browser extension for Chrome. All Google Fusion Tables files are saved in the user’s Google Drive account. As of this writing, a Google Drive account offered through an institution working on Google infrastructure—for instance, university-affiliated Gmail accounts—cannot be used with Google Fusion Tables.

 In addition to “Map of latitude,” its map view, Google Fusion Tables offers four additional data views: “Rows” (the data table, sortable by attribute), “Cards” (individual entities with all their metadata and any associated images), “Summary” (bar graphs counting entities relative to a selected attribute’s variables), and “Chart” (two-dimensional charts displaying the relationship between two attributes). All data views, including the Map view, can be filtered by date span, geography, or any other attributes.

 Map views in Google Fusion tables are simple, with point values or imported .kml shapefiles overlaying the familiar Google Maps interface. Map features can be clicked to display a static popup window, including the feature’s metadata and any associated images. The map can also be manipulated through data filtering, but visual customizability is minimal, and geoprocessing capability is absent.

Example Applications

While the author was unable to find any digital humanities projects that specifically listed Google Fusion Tables as their mapping infrastructure, there are several projects which are built using the Google Maps API and which display front-end interfaces that are very similar to a map produced by Google Fusion Tables.

Digital Humanities Potential

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