The China Biographical Database
Peter. K. Bol, Harvard University
pkbol@fas.harvard.edu

Mapping Historical Buddhist Sites with National and Regional Sources
Merrick Lex Berman, Harvard Yenching Institute
mberman@fas.harvard.edu

Reconstructing Past River Courses with Remote Sensing and Ancient Sources
Zhimin Man, Fudan University
zmmanb@online.sh.cn

Some Treatment for Determining the Spacial and Temporal Feature of CHGIS data
Yilin Zou, Fudan University
chg@fudan.edu.cn

Abstracts

The China Biographical Database
Peter. K. Bol, Harvard University

The China Biographical Database is a relational database for posopographical history developed by the late Robert Hartwell and reprogrammed by Michael Fuller, contains data on 30,000 Chinese officials from the 9th to 14th century and 30,000 of their kin. It allows the user to generate extensive kin networks, patterns of office holding, networks of personal associations, bibliography, and more. The data can be queried by geographic place, by date, and other means. Query results can also be exported to a GIS program such as the China Historical GIS. The ability to generate kinship networks makes this unique in the East Asia field. The database has extensive editing capabilities. It is bilingual (Chinese English). The Harvard Yenching Institute holds the copyright for the database. Ideally it would be made freely available to scholars world-wide. The database can be extended to include all figures found in the historical record and their families. Given the extraordinary power of this database, we need to consider seriously the value of making significant investments to extend its coverage to the rest of Chinese history.

The China Historical GIS (CHGIS), a joint research project of the Center for Historical Geography at Fudan University and the Harvard Yenching Institute is in the fourth year of developing a database and GIS framework for all the recorded administrative divisions of dynastic China (222 BCE to 1911 CE). The goal of the project is to establish a geospatial standard for the historical administrative units of China and to provide this
framework to researchers free of charge. Individual scholars or research projects may then take advantage of the CHGIS as a digital gazetteer, metadata standard, and as a platform for statistical or spatial analysis.

As a practical example of how the CHGIS datasets can be used for georeferencing specific sources of historical data, the religious sites section of the Chinese national gazetteer of 1820 [Da Qing yitongzhi] was digitized. The resulting GIS layer of 2,400 Buddhist sites throughout China was made available for general use in May 2004. This year, an unrelated research project on the historical Tibetan Buddhist sites of Qinghai Province has been completed. The resulting dataset of 600 Buddhist monasteries in Qinghai shows a high density of sites in an area that was virtually empty in the 1820 national gazetteer.

By making use of CHGIS as a common basis for georeferencing, the locations found in these unrelated sources can then be mapped and compared, revealing points of commonality and divergence and offering new possibilities for the interpretation of the historical development of Buddhism throughout the region.

Reconstructing Past River Courses with Remote Sensing and Ancient Sources
Zhimin Man, Fudan University

The China Historical GIS (CHGIS), as a joint research project of the Harvard Yenching Institute and the Center for Historical Geography at Fudan University, aims to built a basic temporal geographical information system of Chinese dynasties. River courses usually act as one of basic elements for division of administrative regionalization. So it is important to reconstruct main river courses, which emerged in past time, before determining the administrative boundary of CHGIS data. The evidence of past river course comes from three types:
1), Remote sensing data. Land satellite image can show the difference of land use, that usually is made from difference of sediment environment. High resolution DEM data can show the tiny heave of terrain, e.g. riverbed and embankment.
2), Ancient maps. The maps drawn past time may carry some information that was altered later.
3), Documentary records. Ancient documentary records are main and traditional evidences for reconstructing the river course. They provided the real time witness or understanding by the recorders. The temporal feature in such evidence is unique and unreplaceable.
GIS tool acts as working plate form for combining the three types evidence source in a unitive geographical coordinate and spacial resolution.

Some Treatment for Determining the Spacial and Temporal Feature of CHGIS Data
Yilin Zou, Fudan University

Detail records in ancient documentary source for setting and abolishment of administrative units are basic and main evidences for compiling CHGIS data. But not all such administrative units changes will be recorded in text, that usually happed in the changes and alternation before Sui Dynasty. For making a sequential data set of CHGIS, Some treatment must be made for dealing with no detail notes for administrative unit changes. Any administrative unit change has its driving force. The change of governmental system and political event usually acts as such forcing role. E.g. the more than 400 counties were cancelled in the 6th year of Jianwu of East Han Dynasty (A.D. 30), and 589 counties were cancelled in the 7th year of Tianbao of Northern Qi Dynasty (A.D. 556). So, such event time can worked as real abolished time of the administrative units that recorded in before but not emerged in after.