Full Citation
Title: National Historical Geographical Information System as a tool for historical research: Population and railways in Wales, 1841-1911
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2009
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: 1. Introduction: Historical GIS and National Historical GIS databasesHistorical Geographical Information Systems, or Historical GIS, has become a rapidly growing field within historical research (Gregory & Ell 2007; Gregory & Healey 2007; Knowles 2005). It is an inter-disciplinary field that involves taking GIS technology, devised in the fields of computer science and environmental management, and applying it to the study of history. A major impetus behind the growth of Historical GIS has been the significant investments made by a number of countries in National Historical GISs (NHGIS). Typically, these databases contain a countrys census reports and other data for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including both the statistical data linked to specific administrative units and their geographic locations, together with the changing boundaries of those units. Using a traditional census database containing only statistical information, a researcher could search for aspatial patterns of variation and change across units unattached to their real geographic locations. Using an historical GIS, however, the researcher is now equipped to identify patterns of change that occur simultaneously over time and across geographic space. With historical GIS we can get closer to complexity of change and historical reality.Among the countries that have built or are building NHGISs, the best developed include Great Britain (Gregory et al. 2002), the United States (Fitch & Ruggles 2003), and Belgium (De Moor & Wiedemann, 2003).1. Such systems are costly because they require not only the entry of census information but also the researching and encoding of administrative boundary changes through time, not to mention myriad challenges along the way.2Is all the effort and money expended worth the cost? This paper offers a strong affirmative answer in two ways. Using the Great Britain Historical GIS as an example of highly developed national historical GISs, this paper describes how it was built and1illustrates both the analytic approaches and the substantive results that historical GIS enables. Computer-assisted GIS is not the philosophers stone of course. But it is capable making new contributions to our knowledge of the past, all the more so when combined with other tools in the historian/historical geographers kit.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Gregory, Ian; Schwartz, Robert
Periodical (Full): Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing
Issue: 1
Volume: 3
Pages: 143-162
Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Methodology and Data Collection
Countries: