A variety of recent efforts in Japanese historical geography have not only developed new environments for the use of GIS to explore Japan’s history, they have developed 1) individual research data bases and 2) tools that have been combined with either innovative efforts to examine man-land relations or 3) have exploited GIS data published by public agencies. The three papers proposed here represent each type of effort.

Tatsunori Kawasumi (Ritsumeikan University) explores the geographical environment in which Japan’s first “permanent” capital, Nara, was established. Reconstructing the topography of the site at the time that this city was established he comes to conclusions that contradict common perceptions of the factors that motivated urban planners of the 8th century to locate the capital where they did.

Hiroshi Kawaguchi (Tezukayama University) and Tsunekazu Kato (Osaka Electro-Communication University) are developing GIS tools that can be used to analyze migration seventeenth to nineteenth century Japan. The are building advanced tools that capitalize on data culled from the most traditional of historical sources, handwritten records of religious affiliation death records and the like.

Philip Brown (The Ohio State University) employs a combination of self-generated data, widely available digitized land classification and DEMs, and digital maps published by the Japanese Ministry of Transport to explore some of the outcomes and challenges posed by efforts to ameliorate flooding in the lower reaches of Japan’s longest river, the Shinano, in modern-day Niigata Prefecture.

Both of these presentations demonstrate the ways in which GIS is being used by historical geographers and historians to resolve fundamental problems in the development of Japanese society. They move beyond demonstration of new technological capabilities as eye candy to providing solutions to intellectual problems central to humanistic understanding of Japanese society and culture.

Characteristics of the Siting and Environment of the Urban Areas of Heijōkyō （AD710-784）in the Northern Nara Basin

Kawasumi, Tatsunori
Department of Geography, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan

The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between the physical environment and layout of Japan’s first permanent urban capital. The object of our study is the area of Heijōkyō （AD710-784, now Nara City）in the Northern Nara Basin. It is often argued that in the alluvial plains of Japan, villages followed a model of locating in the highest locations in order to avoid flooding. However, in the case of urban areas which spread over much larger areas there has been little research that explores the relationship between such environmental risks and the siting/layout of towns.

On the basis of our analysis we conclude that Heijōkyō was concentrated in the< flood plain and dissected valleys of the area. Heretofore it has been thought that the topography of flood plains and dissected valleys was unsuitable for large settlements due to the risk of flooding. Looking at the relationship between topography and the urban layout of Heijōkyō we see evidence for a perspective that differs considerably from a modern-day point of view.

We can surmise from the preceding pattern that designers of this urban space stressed the ease of providing water for daily use. In this environment the water table was high and wells could be dug easily to provide water.

Further, the area of the town in which water was concentrated was actually quite small and there were often places that were at a risk of inadequate water supply. Correspondingly, the danger of flooding was also restricted to a limited scale. Such thinking must have played a large role in the urban planners’ siting and design of Heijōkyō.

An Historical GIS for Analyzing Migration through Marriage in 17th-19th century Japan

Hiroshi KAWAGUCHI
Faculty of Business Administration, Tezukayama Unviersity, Nara, Japan

Tsunekazu KATO
Faculty of Engineering, Osaka Electro-Communication University, Osaka, Japan

Most of the studies of historical demography in early modern Japan have been made with three kinds of historical documents, the Japanese religious investigation registers, the Buddhist temple death registers and the family registers. If we find the cases where these documents have been well preserved, we can obtain a great deal of information about the real life of peasants including not only population statistics but also indices concerning family status. We have been developing a database system to calculate demographic statistics from these documents. We call this system DANJURO. We are going to construct a historical GIS for analyzing migration for marriage with DANJURO.

Japan Sinks: Floods, Drainage, and the Impact of Modern Civil Engineering in the Echigo Plain

Philip Brown
Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio, USA

A variety of data is now widely available that permits historians to explore long-term environmental changes and their impact on Japan. Available data includes freely downloadable digital elevation data that formerly was available only at fairly high cost. In addition, 1:50,000 land classification maps are also freely available for download from public web sites. Government agencies, such as the Ministry of Transport and some of its regional subdivisions now publish freely available geological studies that are accompanied by CDs with very useful digital data that can assist scholars in analyzing the degree and nature of certain environmental changes over recent millennia. Finally, recent emphasis on providing publicly available hazard maps to assist in emergency preparation and evacuation provide an additional source of geographic data that can help historians explore land-man relations. Using these data, this paper explores ways in which Japanese have re-constructed the lower Shinano river basin in order to reduce flood risk and increase economic output with results that, while reducing some flood hazards, generated paradoxical outcomes