GIS and the Visualization of Dynastic Rule: The German Experience in the 19th Century
Andreas Kunz and Silke Marburg, Institute of European History, Mainz
kunz@inst-euro-history.uni-mainz.de

Mapping Ireland
Paul S Ell, Queen’s University Belfast
paul.ell@qub.ac.uk

National and Transnational Historical GIS
David J Bodenhamer, IUPUI
intu100@iupui.edu

Abstracts

GIS and the Visualization of Dynastic Rule: The German Experience in the 19th Century
Dr. Andreas Kunz
Dr. Silke Marburg
Project “HGIS-Germany”
Institute of European History, Mainz, Germany

At the Institute of European History, Mainz, Germany, a historical GIS on Germany and Central Europe in the 19th Century (HGIS Germany) is presently being built up. It contains, among other things, a module on the spatial representation and visualization of Germany’s ruling dynasties during this period. The rationale behind this approach is, of course, that (with the exception of four city states) the 40 or so other states which existed in Germany at the time all were hereditary monarchies until 1918. Gathering “dynastic information” on the rulers and their families has thus emerged as an important contributing element to the “life histories” of these states. Later users of HGIS-Germany will be able to query the system for dynasty-related items such as the ruling monarchs themselves (and their families), their spouses (and their families), the heirs to the throne and their spouses (including the latter’s dynastic ties), but likewise on such questions as the duration, quality and forms of dynastic rule. Most importantly, all information will be encoded within our HGIS-database in such a way as to allow for the spatial visualization of dynastic relationships, i.e. for the creation of “dynastic maps” on the fly generated by the system.

We trust that our work will be especially interesting to our Chinese colleagues, since ruling dynasties, as is well known, played a large role in Chinese history. Thus, our approach may be of some relevance to the Historical GIS of China as well.

We are proposing to deliver a paper, backed by a PowerPoint presentation. Should this not be possible, we would also consider presenting our results in form of a poster and/or a demo presentation. A paper would be very much preferred, though.

In the mid 1990s the Database of Irish Historical Statistics was created at the Queen's University, Belfast. This is one of the largest quantitative resources on Irish history holding data from the census, poor law and sources through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Database led directly to the publication of an atlas "Mapping the Great Irish Famine" that gave a spatial history of the causes and impacts of the Famine in the mid-1840s. At the time the Database was created, however, no attempt was made to build a comprehensive GIS of the changing administrative units of Ireland. This paper reviews progress towards creating such a system based on using townlands, a tiny and very stable administrative unit of which there were 60,000 in Ireland. These will be digitised and look-up tables created to allow them to be aggregated to create Ireland's larger administrative units, particularly baronies and poor law unions.

The recent past has witnessed the emergence of national historical GIS projects, with Great Britain, Ireland, the United States, Netherlands, and China as prime examples. Each of these projects stem from a desire to integrate vast data resources over time and space and make them available for both research and public use. The challenges faced by each are remarkably similar -incomplete data, uncertain boundaries, and incompatible data formats, among others - yet each offers unique opportunities to invigorate historical research through visualisation and spatial analysis. One major problem is the absence of standards, or more properly, the absence of agreement on standards. This paper will examine how national historical GIS projects are addressing the challenges inherent in their work and will suggest the potential to work across national boundaries toward a truly trans-national historical GIS.