Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
cut through the middle of lands once controlled by the Song. An arc of
new prefectures protected the new border, while an innovative policy
allowed for jurisdictions to be temporarily demoted in the parts of the
empire where the depredations of armies led to demographic collapse.
As refugees moved into the far south, many jurisdictions that had been
abolished two centuries before were restored. However, once a peace
treaty was signed in 1142, the spatial landscape became almost com-
pletely stable for the last century of the Song reign.
Historical spatial analysis based upon the DGSD reveals that, as
Charles Tilly would have predicted, Song state power varied spatially,
since military geography, population geography, economic geography,
and political factionalism each made different demands upon imperial
organization. Song rulers faced contradictions between different ideal
political landscapes as well as military crises and virulent factional poli-
tics. Nevertheless, Song spatial change adhered to a general patern
of consolidating jurisdictions located in political and economic cores
while expanding them on setlement and military frontiers. However,
the court's political capital was only sufficient to renovate the imperial
landscape during three relatively brief eras of founding, reform, and re-
vival. These findings are interesting for many topics in Chinese history;
and it is our hope that they will help to inspire a new field in the spatial
history of state power as well.
HGIS Analysis Case 2: Integr ating
Environmental and Gazetteer Data:
The View from the Yellow River
The previous section of this essay explains the dynamics of spatial
change and the politics of landscape at the scale of the regime and re-
gion. he DGSD, based upon data in Song national gazeteers and not
upon local history or fieldwork, is well suited for researching spatial
paterns of that extent. However, analysis at an imperial scale is not ad-
equate to demonstrate why particular jurisdictions within a given area
were maintained or abolished. For that, the DGSD needs to be integrated
with other kinds of data. Until now, historians who have sought to move
from large-scale reasoning to the explanation of particular cases of spa-
