Heritage Web GIS: an interactive map with Leaflet and GeoJSON

A geomatics database only earns its keep once it leaves the back office to become a tool for decision-making or discovery. For an elected official, a citizen or a visitor to take ownership of a territory, the data has to be legible and interactive. That is the whole point of a Web GIS. Through this platform, which now covers ten Local Action Group (LAG) territories in Moldova — starting with my home village of Onișcani, in the heart of the Codrii — I show how I turn raw geospatial data into a smooth, multilingual map that works anywhere. The map is live in my portfolio.

I run CODRUM, a geomatics and web development studio. I build these tools so they serve as visual arguments: backing a grant application, mapping a tourist route or managing municipal infrastructure.

Why a Web GIS rather than a static map?

A PDF or a paper map imposes a single, predetermined reading. A Web GIS hands control back to the user: show heritage alone, add administrative boundaries to grasp land-use stakes, overlay the forest cover, search for a specific site. Each layer tells one facet of the territory, and the user composes their own narrative. My design rests on three requirements: minimal load time (essentials first, detail on demand), an interface built mobile-first — the real screen of decision-makers and residents alike — and native multilingual support (Romanian, Russian, English, French) to reach every audience.

The data: official orthophoto, ground, remote sensing

A map is only as good as its sources. Here the basemap is not a generic satellite image but the official orthophoto of the Agency for Land Relations and Cadastre (AGCC), served as a WMS stream from geodata.gov.md — the reference data, the one behind cadastral deeds. On top, I assemble the road network, hydrography and the Codri forest cover, cross-referencing OpenStreetMap data with my remote-sensing study. The heritage inventory is the core of the app: 30 geolocated sites — from Hârbovăț Monastery, the one featured on the 50-lei Moldovan banknote, to listed wooden churches and Geto-Dacian archaeological sites — for the Codrii Călărașului territory alone. Every vector layer is cleaned, reprojected and trimmed (reduced precision, simplified geometries) to stay fluid even on a phone over 4G.

The architecture: Leaflet and GeoJSON, light and durable

No need for a heavyweight stack. The map runs on Leaflet — the reference open-source mapping library — and on optimised GeoJSON files. Layers are organised into toggleable groups, the orthophoto and relief basemaps arrive over WMS, and the interface uses a sliding bottom-sheet on mobile. No heavy dependency, no proprietary account, no licence fee: it all fits in a self-contained page, published under the MIT licence. That sobriety is a durability choice — a local authority must be able to host and maintain its tool without depending on a vendor.

From static to dynamic: PostGIS behind the showcase

This demo is static, but it rests on a full production logic. In parallel I build Web GIS architectures where data lives in a PostgreSQL/PostGIS database and is served dynamically as GeoJSON through PHP endpoints. A local authority can therefore start with a presentation map, then move to a tool where its staff add, edit and export their own data — in real time, without touching the code. It is the logical sequel to the work on my geospatial database on Jakarta's urbanisation.

Transferring the method: heritage, tourism, planning

The approach is universal. The structure used for the heritage of these territories adapts to tracking a sewer network, a zoning plan, waste-collection points or a hiking trail. A Web GIS pays off the moment a territory wants to show, share or decide on a spatial basis. It closes an engineering cycle: after multi-criteria analysis in QGIS (choosing where to build) and spatial analysis for local authorities (understanding a territory), it makes the results public and defensible.

On pricing I stay transparent: an online Web GIS map (your data integrated, official basemap, multilingual, mobile) starts at €1,500; a dynamic Web GIS app backed by an editable PostGIS database at €2,500. Based in Morsang-sur-Orge, I work across Essonne, Île-de-France and remotely — including internationally, as this Moldovan project shows. Let's talk about your territory: free scoping, quote within 48 h.

For a full breakdown of services and price ranges, see the Services & Pricing page.