Introduction
Geographic information systems are widely used for mapping and analyzing
current spatial phenomena in fields such as urban planning, geography, environmental
planning, and business. Over the last decade, their use for historical analysis has also
increased. On the theoretical and software-design side, there has been extensive work
by Langran (1992) and others on issues of how to handle time in GIS databases. A
bibliography on spatiotemporal database research (Al-Taha, 1994) stated that over 350
papers by almost 300 researchers had been written on the subject of GIS, space, and
time. A general survey of issues of GIS and temporal data is given in the summary of a
conference held in 1990 (Barrera et al., 1990). There has also been extensive use of
GIS techniques for archaeological documentation and analysis, as reported in Gamble
(1987) and in an anthology by Allen et al. (1990). More recently, researchers in the
social sciences and humanities have started to use GIS for historical analysis (Knowles,
2000).
The historical GIS project reported on here is based on a PhD dissertation
entitled "Creating a GIS spatial history of Tokyo" (Siebert, 1997), in which I used a
variety of historical sources -- such as topographic maps, censuses, administrative
histories, and rail event chronologies -- to document, visualize, and interpret aspects of
Tokyo's urban history. This is an ongoing project of creating a multifaceted spatial
history archive on computer. In this presentation to the Computers in Urban Planning
and Urban Management conference, I will discuss and illustrate some of the many types
of spatial phenomena included so far in the historical GIS project. Details of data input,
database design, and mapping methods used are given in the dissertation and in a
survey article for social science historians (Siebert, 2000a).
The components included in the GIS spatial history database, which covers
Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto region, are: (1) shoreline and river/canal changes in
Tokyo Bay and its delta lands, (2) administrative history, including annexations,
mergers, and status changes of villages, towns, cities, and wards, (3) population
changes, (4) rail network development, and (5) an initial mapping of landscape
fragmentation in one part of Tokyo prefecture. Recording the history of these spatial
phenomena in the GIS required use of a variety of source materials (map, table, text,
chronologies) and a variety of GIS data types (points, lines, and areas), thus making
them a useful set for developing historical GIS techniques.
Copyright
2001 Loren Siebert / GIS-based Visualization of Tokyo's Urban History 1