The HGIS Experience of Drawing Sub-county Unit Boundaries in the Jiangnan Region of Late Imperial China - Space-Time Integration in Geography and GIScience - page 172

Fig. 11.1 A typical abstract map of traditional Chinese local gazetteers

In preparing the “Geographical Information System Database of Cotton Textile
Industry of the Greater Songjiang Region from the Late Ming to the Mid-Qing
( http://www.iseis.cuhk.edu.hk/songjiang/ ) ,” we used high scale digital maps of
modern Shanghai as our base maps and GIS technologies to partially overcome
the aforementioned shortcomings of the local gazetteers. We transformed the verbal
information and primitive maps of these traditional sources into agreeable forms of
modern cartography that were ready for spatial analysis.
In short, after plotting the exact locations of hundreds of towns, temples, rivers
and other landmarks, we were then able to draw the boundaries of sub-county units
or townships ( du

) beneath the county or prefectural levels. In many
Jiangnan counties, these units nearly went unchanged during the 600 years of Ming-
Qing rule, and thus they provide a perfect platform for conducting a meso-spatial
analysis that would be far more precise than that restricted at the original county or
prefectural levels.
In this study, the structure and characteristics of the Chinese local gazetteers
are first introduced and practical hints are offered on how information related to the
building of GISs is derived from the various categories of these specialized historical
sources. This is followed by a step-by-step demonstration of our experiences in
building a historical GIS for the Ming-Qing Songjiang region (modern Shanghai).
The study concludes with a discussion on the use of sub-county polygons in
historical and geographical research.

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