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 181

Table 11.1 (continued)

Bao Number of li Percentage (%) Number of ding Percentage (%)

43 50 3.720 9,059 4.353

44 4 0.298 374 0.180

45 23 1.711 1,198 0.576

46 14 1.042 1,840 0.884

47 11 0.819 737 0.354

49 19 1.414 2,429 1.167

50 30 2.232 3,854 1.852

Total 1,344 100 208,134 100

Fig. 11.5 A demonstration of the display of population density in our HGIS (The darker color
representing higher population density of the sub-county units)

Applying this list of population percentages to the township polygon infrastruc-
ture allowed us to calculate the population figures of each bao , and therefore enquire
into the population density and taxation issues of these micro-divisions (Fig. 11.5 ).

11.4 Concluding Remarks: Potential of Sub-county

Units in Historical and Geographical Research

The aforementioned methods of drawing the bao boundaries of the Songjiang
prefecture circa the Ming-Qing periods are only a few of the ways in which the
verbal and qualitative information collected by traditional local gazetteers has been