Map of Old Diamond Rush

Overview of the archaeological map of diamond mining in the region viewed with Google Maps API.
One of the 765 points on the interactive map an old miner's house and your local guardian.
Since the 1990s, Roy Funch has been doing the mapping that can now be seen with this Google Maps API.
Old guardians were mapped between the years 1994 and 2024, a field work carried out by Roy Funch.
In this region of Brazil, using Google Maps allows insights into the landscapes, places and human cultures.

Inspiration

This is Map of Old Diamond Rush! To revive and share the legacy of manual diamond mining in the Chapada Diamantina region of Brazil, we transformed detailed archaeological data from +750 sites into an interactive analog-digital narrative using Google Maps.

What it does

We converted extensive archaeological records for interactive geospatial visualization, leveraging Google Maps API, Google Earth’s 3D capabilities and data management through Google Sheets, integrating them on a responsive Google Sites platform. This map of sites dating back 150 years invites communities and travelers to discover new places and details of manual diamond mining archaeology.

How we built it

We structured the historical dataset in Google Sheets to facilitate dynamic updates, precisely georeferencing each location using analog UTM coordinates, and visualized them with custom KML digital layers in Google Earth and Maps – delivering a unique experience through a user-friendly interface built with Google Sites. A 40-year analog work that was digitized in 30 days with Google Maps!

Challenges we ran into

Accurately aligning legacy UTM data with Google Earth’s WGS84 system required careful coordinate transformation and validation. Integrating multi-format data (photos, descriptions, geospatial points) into seamless interactive elements challenged workflow optimization.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully digitized a large and complex archaeological archive into a visually compelling, accessible platform, demonstrating how freely available Google tools can help preserve a rich cultural heritage while enabling user engagement.

What we learned

We gained practical expertise in combining multiple Google APIs and tools (Sheets for data management, Maps and Earth for spatial visualization, and Sites for distribution) to craft a scalable and maintainable digital project in a 1500 km2 National Park with 2 billion year old landscapes that attract more than 200,000 tourists a year from all over the world who can explore the region using maps like this.

What's next for Map of Old Diamond Rush

Future development includes integrating new site data, embedding oral histories via multimedia content, and implementing bilingual support (SDK) to ensure that the map remains an evolving resource through community collaboration using Google Forms.

Built With

Submitted to

Google Maps Platform Awards

Created by

I came to Brazil with the US Peace Corps in 1978 and stayed on in the fantastically beautiful and historic diamond-mining zone. I learned the mountains with the old miners themselves and decided to document their disappearing way of life and the archaeology of the region. Hiking with the miners, and later exploring on my own, I have recorded the stone monuments left by generations of miners – primitive stone shelters and stone houses, aqueducts, stone corrals, and even pictographs left by Amerindians. This work will aid historians as well as tourists to the region and help preserve the fading memory of manual diamond mining.

Roy Funch
When people say that the Chapada Diamantina region was occupied by gems prospectors, it is difficult to understand the size of this urban area without this archaeological map.

Each georeferenced point contains a photo and a form with information about height, width and description of places that served as work and shelter in the mountains of the region.

Years of research work developed by Roy Funch based in QGIS that I had the honor of mapping for the Google My Maps!

Antônio Laranjeira
Data Journalism | Geospatial Analysis | Open Source Intelligence | Social Innovation