modeling european administrative hierarchies and geographies

Great Britain Historical GIS Project:A Vision of Britain though Time

Modeling Europeanadministrative hierarchies

and geographies

Humphrey Southall(University of Portsmouth/

Great Britain Historical GIS)


What kinds of geographical entity?

• Traditional GIS very focused on landscape features• But interpretation of historical texts is about units and places

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Gazetteer Type

Landscape Features

Administrative Units

Places

Typed Yes Yes No

Visible Yes No No

Defined by Existence in landscape

Legal establishment as corporate bodies

Shared perception; mention in texts and discourse – “social tagging”

Defined as (mostly) points legally defined polygons

(mostly) fuzzy polygons


Why administrative units matter?• Reporting units for most historical statistics

– Why I got involved with them• Units for recording births, marriages and deaths

– Why family historians are interested in them– And main reason why there is money in them

• Main creators of documents in archives– Why archivists are interested in them– And administrative units pay archivists salaries!

• Provide a historical record for informal “places”– Why historians not interested in AUs per se may still find

them useful– Examples yesterday of how two “places” named after pubs

were recorded as AUs with defined polygons

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QVIZ Project• Funded by EU Framework Programme 6• Two year project in 2006-8• Partners included:

– HumLab, University of Umea (Leaders)– National Archives of Sweden (“Customers”)– National Archives of Estonia (“Customers”)– Regio (Estonian GIS company)– Salzburg Research (developing Wikipedia replacement, I

think)– Telefonica (Spanish telephone company)– GB Historical GIS, Portsmouth (AUO builders)

• www.qviz.eu

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The Archivist’s Perspective• At highest level, an archive is divided into Fonds, each

consisting of all documents created by a single organisation, or Corporate Body

• Then into (sub-fonds), series, (sub-series), files and items

• Ideally every item in an archive is catalogued, but most basic task is the identification of the corporate bodies which defined fonds

• Many (most?) archives are funded by government bodies, and mainly hold records of government bodies

• Many (most?) government bodies defined by territories• Need to standardise author names – harder for Aus

than people14th April 2011


Archival Documentation Standards• Encoded Archival Description (EAD)

– Widely used XML DTD– Archivists equivalent of MARC– Used in large scale metadata harvesting, such as A2A

• Encoded Archival Context (EAC)– Only just finalised XML Schema– Implements ISAAR (CPF)– Focus on record creators

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Sample EAC Definition: Australian Biologist

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NCA Rules

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Key Source: F. Youngs’ Guide to the Local Administrative

Units of England

Is this geographical information?

No maps, and no co-ordinates

Books like these let us populate very large ontologies quickly


Defining Types• Landscape features have to be

classified by the gazetteer builder or map maker

• Hence ADL Gazetteer Feature Type Thesaurus

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Defining AU Typologies

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• Should the same approach be taken for administrative units

• This is what the ADL FTT says:• But Aus are completely defined

in law• Our job is not to classify but to

record what AUs actually are


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Where? – The Administrative Unit Ontology• In the beginning was the unit …• Administrative areas, so corporate

bodies with legally-defined boundaries, and dates of creation and abolition– Districts and Unitary Authorities– Hundreds and Wapentakes– States of Europe since 1815

• Basic unit record is minimal: ID number, type, dates of existence, and immediate and ultimate authorities

• All units are assigned to a type, such as Ancient County or Sanitary District, and types are assigned to one of 13 geographical levels, e.g. County

g_unit_type_level http://www.icpsr.umich.ed

u/DDI/

g_unit_type

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/

g_unit



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Unit names and statuses

g_unit


g_status


g_status_type

g_name

g_name_status

g_name_language

• Every unit can have any number of names• Names have their own dates and authorities• Names have a status: preferred, alternate, official etc5• Name languages recorded via Ethnologue/Linguist codes

• Units cannot change type, but can have multiple status values consecu-tively or concur-rently.

• 117 types, plus 93 status values associated with 20 of the types, so 190 kinds of unit – not 4!


AUI Visualisation

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Typology Overview

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Geographical Level 9:

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Type: Local Government District

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Status: Urban Districts

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Status: Rural District Boundary

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Geographical level 11

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Type: Parish-level units

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Status: Chapelry

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Estonian Typology

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Estonian Units

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Count of number of names per languageLANGUAGE NUMBER OF NAMES

ENGLISH 62603

SWEDISH 7507

ESTONIAN 11973

GERMAN 5032

WELSH 1069

FRENCH 61

GREEK 3

ITALIAN 3

RUSSIAN 2

TURKISH 2

OTHER LANGUAGES WITH 1 NAME EACH 26


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Example of unit with many names

• Newborough, Anglesey parish


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Unit relationships• All held in single table,

allowing many-to-many relationships

• Current system has 79,174 units but 250,029 relationships

• Have dates,authorities, etc

g_unit


g_name

g_status


g_rel_type


g_rel http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/

• IsPartOf• SucceededBy (‘see also’)• AdministeredBy• Boundary Changes

– ReducedToEnlarge– ReducedToCreate– AbolishedToEnlarge– AbolishedToCreate– BoundaryChange (other

unit unknown)


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AUO – E-R Diagram

g_unit

PK g_unit

g_hintFK1 g_unit_type g_centroid g_place g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note created_by notes

g_name

PK g_seq

FK1 g_unit g_nameFK2 g_name_status g_language g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note created_by notes

g_status

PK g_seq

FK1 g_unit g_status g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note created_by notes

g_rel

PK g_seq

FK1 g_unit g_rel_toFK2 g_rel_type g_part g_part_area g_part_area_measure c_date_1 c_pop_1 c_hous_1 c_date_2 c_pop_2 c_hous_2 g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note created_by notesFK3 g_unit_type

g_foot

PK g_seq

FK1 g_unit g_foot g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note use_for_search use_for_stat_map use_for_bound_map

g_place

PK g_place

g_seed g_name g_container g_centroid created_by

g_authority

PK g_authority

FK1 g_auth_type g_auth_title g_auth_creator g_auth_creator_forename g_auth_publisher g_auth_pub_place g_auth_date g_auth_identifier url_works g_auth_rights g_auth_rights_string g_auth_description notes

g_auth_type

PK g_auth_type

notes

g_auth_type_level

PK,FK1 g_auth_typePK,FK2 g_language

g_label

g_unit_type

PK g_unit_type

FK1 g_type_levelFK2 g_jurisdiction g_type_period g_duration g_foot stat_only n_language n_label n_label_plural n_description n_full_description n_label n_label_plural n_description n_full_description n_short_label g_label g_label_plural g_description g_full_description g_short_label notes created_byFK3 g_type_function

g_type_level

PK g_type_level

g_adl_ft

g_type_level_label

PK,FK1 g_type_level

FK2 g_language g_label g_description g_full_description

g_name_status

PK g_name_status

im_auth sort_order

g_name_status_label

PK,FK1 g_name_status

FK2 g_language g_label

g_language

PK g_language

g_labelFK1 g_authority g_language_iso notesFK2 g_jurisdiction

g_status_type

PK g_status

FK1 g_unit_type n_language n_label n_short_label n_description n_full_description g_label g_short_label g_description g_full_description notes created_by

g_rel_type

PK g_rel_type

notes created_by

g_rel_type_label

PK,FK1 g_rel_typePK,FK2 g_language

g_label rev_label created_by

g_legal_rel

PK,FK1 g_unit_type

g_rel_type g_rel_unit_type notes created_by

g_jurisdiction

PK g_jurisdiction

g_label preferred_language email_address notes postal_address telephone_number

g_type_function

PK g_type_function

notes

g_type_function_label

PK,FK1 g_type_function



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AUO – E-R Diagram

g_unit

PK g_unit

g_hintFK1 g_unit_type g_centroid g_place g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note created_by notes

g_name

PK g_seq

FK1 g_unit g_nameFK2 g_name_status g_language g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note created_by notes

g_status

PK g_seq

FK1 g_unit g_status g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note created_by notes

g_rel

PK g_seq

FK1 g_unit g_rel_toFK2 g_rel_type g_part g_part_area g_part_area_measure c_date_1 c_pop_1 c_hous_1 c_date_2 c_pop_2 c_hous_2 g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note created_by notesFK3 g_unit_type

g_foot

PK g_seq

FK1 g_unit g_foot g_duration im_auth im_note ul_auth ul_note use_for_search use_for_stat_map use_for_bound_map

g_place

PK g_place

g_seed g_name g_container g_centroid created_by

g_authority

PK g_authority

FK1 g_auth_type g_auth_title g_auth_creator g_auth_creator_forename g_auth_publisher g_auth_pub_place g_auth_date g_auth_identifier url_works g_auth_rights g_auth_rights_string g_auth_description notes

g_auth_type

PK g_auth_type

notes

g_auth_type_level

PK,FK1 g_auth_typePK,FK2 g_language

g_label

g_unit_type

PK g_unit_type

FK1 g_type_levelFK2 g_jurisdiction g_type_period g_duration g_foot stat_only n_language n_label n_label_plural n_description n_full_description n_label n_label_plural n_description n_full_description n_short_label g_label g_label_plural g_description g_full_description g_short_label notes created_byFK3 g_type_function

g_type_level

PK g_type_level

g_adl_ft

g_type_level_label

PK,FK1 g_type_level


g_name_status

PK g_name_status

im_auth sort_order

g_name_status_label

PK,FK1 g_name_status

FK2 g_language g_label

g_language

PK g_language

g_labelFK1 g_authority g_language_iso notesFK2 g_jurisdiction

g_status_type

PK g_status

FK1 g_unit_type n_language n_label n_short_label n_description n_full_description g_label g_short_label g_description g_full_description notes created_by

g_rel_type

PK g_rel_type

notes created_by

g_rel_type_label

PK,FK1 g_rel_typePK,FK2 g_language

g_label rev_label created_by

g_legal_rel

PK,FK1 g_unit_type

g_rel_type g_rel_unit_type notes created_by

g_jurisdiction

PK g_jurisdiction

g_label preferred_language email_address notes postal_address telephone_number

g_type_function

PK g_type_function

notes

g_type_function_label

PK,FK1 g_type_function


• This structure now holds:– 79,174 admin units5– 250,029 relationships between them– 82,864 boundary polygons (for 40,006

units)– 18,230 “places” (groupings of AUs)– 38,524 descriptions from C19 gazetteers

linked to “places” (plus another 57,569 un-linked entries)

– 150,529 geographical names, for units and places


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Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight


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Estonia


European international boundarychanges since 1815, by decade

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1810

1830

1850

1870

1890

1910

1930

1950

1970

1990

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

No. Of Changes


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Boundary Mapping: Britain, Estonia, Sweden• Example shows boundaries down only

to county-level• Current system goes

down to or belowparishes for all3 countries

• Largest multi-nationalhistorical GIS?– NB few other

candidates


Mapping a unit lacking boundaries

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Web sites, etc• Vision of Britain:

www.VisionOfBritain.org.uk• Data Documentation System:

www.VisionOfBritain.org.uk/data• Great Britain Historical GIS:

www.gbhgis.orgwww.port.ac.uk/research/gbhgis

• Mailing lists:www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/gbhgis

www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/history-gis

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http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/

http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data

http://www.gbhgis.org/

http://www.port.ac.uk/research/gbhgis

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/gbhgis

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/gbhgis

modeling european administrative hierarchies and geographies

Documents

vision of britain

historical record

historical statisticswhy

traditional gis

year project

themand administrative

reporting units

defined polygons14th