本研究支援的交叉学科，涉及历史学、都市学、历史地理学、地理信息系统学、档案学、经济学、法学及法制史学、宗教学、教育学、公共医疗学以及新文化史等领域。可以有很大的跨學科合作空間。
本项目主持人非常感谢北京市档案馆在我们收集资料时大力提供协助。此外亦希望感谢洛克菲勒档案中心在有关协和医院资料方面所提供的帮助。我们对两馆慨允让我们及用者使用相关的信息，尤其是珍贵的民国北京地图，尤需再致谢忱。
This dataset is a database outcome of the Research Project entitled "Beijing in Transition: A Historical GIS Study of Urban Cultures, 1912-1937." Supported by the Research Gant Council of the Hong Kong SAR Government with the project code number #450407, the research project aims at examining the spatial patterns of modern urban cultural change in China. The object of observation is set in this project at the Beijing city from the advent of the Republican era in 1912 to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Beijing city represents a good case where traditional and Western cultures encountered and intermingled with extraordinary intensity under the political cultural vacuum of either a weak central government or as a provincial city during the Nanjing regime.
The project has three objectives:
- To develop a Historical GIS dataset with six sets of cultural spheres.
- To present the spatial patterns and changes in each of these spheres.
- To apply the spatial analysis functions of the GIS program to the dataset and compare the data across the six cultural spheres so as to explore any implications therein.
The six cultural spheres are as below:
- Urban morphology
- Market culture
- Education culture
- Public health and medical culture
- Legal culture
- Religious culture
Information collected in this dataset is from the public domain, either online or by request on site. Those from the Beijing Municipal Archive constituted the main body of the dataset but there were also data from other libraries, archives and museums. The sources of the data were also noted in the attribute tables and other materials presented in the Online Resources in the Homepage.
This dataset may support research in various disciplines, including history, urban study, historical geography, historical GIS study, archival study, economics, law and legal history, religious study, education history, public health and new cultural history, and so on. It promotes interdisciplinary inquiries.
Acknowledgment
Project investigators would like to thank Beijing Municipal Archive for its very professional staff’s considerate assistance during the entire process of our data collection; and to Rockefeller Archival Center for their support in our research regarding Peking Union Medical College. In particular we would thank them for their kind permissions to let us and our users use their information, including the rare old Beijing maps in their possession.
