THE «HISTORICAL GIS GERMANY» - A TIME ENABLED INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR GERMANY AND
CENTRAL EUROPE 1820-1914
L. Dietze, A. Kunz, A. Zipf
(Germany)
zipf@geoinform.fh-mainz.de
The
National Historical GIS for Germany
(“HGIS Germany”) is a research project developing an information system on
German states and territories from 1820 to 1914. We present the Web interface
to the spatio-temporal data and maps on the spatio-temporal development of the
administrative units, the dynastic information on the ruling dynasties, the
development of the traffic, and statistical information on society and economy
during that time (www.hgis-germany.de).
We research the development of Germany
down to the governmental district level, and combine this with a wealth of
statistical data as well as information about the ruling dynasties and their
mutual relationships. All this information is made accessible via a web-based
information system that offers thousands of maps on information to researchers
and interested users. The system is based on OGC standards like WMS, WFS &
SLD. We will explain the challenges of this approach in the full paper.
We have developed and filled spatio-temporal databases
that include information on the political-geography of Germany (and
surrounding Central Europe). This includes
detailed information on the individual (federated) states which comprised Germany in that
time, as well as demographic and economic data. Another emphasis has been
placed on the historical development of infrastructures, especially of
transport networks. Such data is being connected with the political-geographic
data and with the attribute data, i.e. the historical, political, and social data.
This can make the HISTORICAL GIS GERMANY one of the foremost reference tools on
modern German political, social and economic history and allows exploring the
“life histories” of spatial entities over one hundred years.
For
structures pertaining to more than one state the term “worlds of states” (“Staatenwelt”) has been coined to denote
unions of states etc. Regarding those, for example the following maps can be
generated dynamically for each year:
-
Complete
area of the union (including enclaves, exclaves etc.)
-
Type of
membership in the chosen “Staatenwelt”
-
Political
map
-
Administrative
structure
Further thematic maps for each year include for
example the following:
-
„Who
married whom?“ for each state dynastic nuptial relationships
-
individual
dynastic families, as single lines (“Einzelhäuser“) or joint lines
(“Gesamthäuser) that participated in each state union
-
population
density of all governmental districts
-
number
and regional distribution of machine spinning in Prussia (selected years 1837 -
1849)