The purpose of this study is to restore the traffic routes around Gwangju, Gyeonggi province in Joseon Dynasty period and to propose spatio-temporal database model using the Historical Geographic Information System (HGIS) accordingly. For this, a vari...
The purpose of this study is to restore the traffic routes around Gwangju, Gyeonggi province in Joseon Dynasty period and to propose spatio-temporal database model using the Historical Geographic Information System (HGIS) accordingly. For this, a variety of relevant literatures, including old maps, gazetteers(地理志) and road guidebooks (程里考) have been analyzed to identify the characteristics of space and attributes of traffic information, followed by the classification of travel stops and paths on a regional and national scale and a comprehensive comparative analysis to restore the network of roads back then.
I have examined the materials that contain the traffic information of Gwangju district, which are largely comprised of old maps, gazetteers and road guidebooks. In consideration of the amount and characteristics of traffic information contained, 『Daedongyeojido』 and 『Joseondo』 have been selected as old maps subject to analysis, along with 『Haedong-jido』, 『Yeojido』, 『Jiseung』, 『1872 County Old Map』 and 『Yeojidoseo』 among painting style county maps and 『Joseon-jido』 among 20-ri(里) scale county maps. I have looked into 『Yeojidoseo』 and 『Daedongjiji』 selected among gazetteers and 『Dorogo』 by Shin Gyeong-jun and 『Daedongjiji』 by Kim Jeong-ho selected among road guidebooks. The selected materials have been analyzed from the perspective of transportation information and have been used to restore and design traffic routes.
Prior to the intended restoration of traffic routes in Gwangju district in Joseon Dynasty period, old maps, gazetteers and road guidebooks were subject to comparative analysis to have traffic information classified based on two different criteria: the method of displaying traffic routes and the method of connections among regions.
First, according to the classification based on the method of displaying traffic routes, the traffic networks can be differentiated between the curved network map and the straight-line network map. The curved network map depicts the actual topography between district A and B, which includes mountains and rivers using curved lines while the straight-line network map indicates no more than the distance between district A and B simply using straight lines only. Most curved network maps fall to the category of painting style maps. The curved network maps include 『Haedong-jido』 and 『1872 County Old Map』 as county maps and 『Joseondo』 as a national scale map. The iconic straight-line network maps include 『Daedongyeojido』 and 『Dongyeodo』.
Second, there are three major different ways of connecting different regions, that is, Hanseong-centered road network, national scale road network, and regional road network.
The Hanseong-centered road network contains major arterial roads nationwide in six to 10 lanes with Hanseong, the capital city, as its central hub. This road network map depicts the connections among all counties and military facilities nationwide, all of which converge toward the single point of Hanseong. The connection network between the region A and B typically has a single line of connection while branching into two or more points at an interchange. This type of road network map is designed to allow viewers to get a grasp of the nation at a single glance for administrative and military purposes. The road network of 『Joseon-jido』 is a county map version of the Hanseong-centered road network, and the 『Cheonggudo』 by Kim Jeong-ho is another version of Hanseong-centered road network featuring rectangular road borders.
The national scale road network has multiple regions and one or more roads connected to one another based on counties and major traffic nodes instead of Hanseong. One of the most iconic maps in this category is 『Daedongyeojido』 by Kim Jeong-ho, which depicts Gwangju interconnected with surrounding cities, including Suwon, Yanggeun, Gwacheon and Hanseong that look like mesh curves. However, this type of map can lead to a variety of road network maps, including the one with no direct connections among counties and connecting among other counties without going through the adjacent ruling spot.
The regional road network is intended to express the road networks in close proximity with community road networks based on a specific country, which is a mixed and adjusted form of the two different types mentioned above. It depicts the network of connecting neighboring regions based on a ruling place and includes the paths of the concerned region appearing in national scale road network in addition to some meaningful roads as part of the inter-region road network as well. This particular map has been prepared for various purposes on a county basis, including regional administration and military purpose so that the manuscript of 『Haedong-jido』 series map contains a variety of road networks.
Based on the analysis of these materials, I have set up a direction for restoration of traffic routes, presented how to restore traffic networks using the HGIS, and restored the traffic routes shown on major graphical materials back onto the present day map. The restoration of traffic routes has been conducted through seven different stages. Stage 1 has conducted building a place-names database and identified the locations in old maps, gazetteers, and road guidebooks. Stage 2 has built a separate database for intersections on the old maps in addition to the names of places. Stage 3 has extracted the road network of a contemporary topographical map for a precise restoration of roads. Stage 4 has restored the road network in late Joseon period. Stage 5 has restored the arterial roads in Joseon Dynasty period, Stage 6 has restored the traffic routes in Gwangju district in a county map and the stage 7 has restored connections among counties nationwide.
Finally, based on the restoration results, I have presented a model of space-time database for traffic routes in Joseon Dynasty period. The Relationship Database Management System (DBMS) has been adopted to design and build the database with geographical information contained in the layer of GIS, and the attribute information has been kept in a table to be interconnected with relevant information. The table that contains the traffic information of raw materials contains the place names in old maps, place names in gazetteers and the place names in road guidebooks, with the places of identical names grouped based on the representative name code.
The space-based layer is comprised of the ‘place name-based layer’, ‘path-based layer’, and the ‘interchange-based layer’, and the ‘place name-based layer’ has been set to be interlinked with the current location codes corresponding to the place names in old maps and gazetteers. The ‘path-based layer’ is a collection of traffic routes in all materials and redundant paths have been processed as a feature. The place names at the time of preparing an old map have been inserted into the source table to allow views to indirectly identify the time of traffic routes. The background layers for historical and geographical environment include the administrative district layers in different periods of time, river borders and coastline layers in Joseon Dynasty period.
As stated so far above, this study has implemented the process of restoring traffic routes using the HGIS, presented the basis for identification of current locations by combining the traffic information contained in old maps, gazetteers, and road guidebooks and proposed ways to promote sharing and interconnections among materials. In addition, the interchanges of traffic routes on the old maps have been rearranged in layers to identify the intermediate stops of traffic routes.
However, this study has focused on restoring the inland traffic routes only, failing to deal with and overlook the importance of ports and harbors as part of the marine traffic routes as well as the presence of any correlations between them. In addition, since Gwangju district, Gyeonggi Province does not appear in 『Bibeonsainbanganjido』 this study has failed to analyze the seemingly the most accurate old map that contains the road network. Further studies with expanded range of source materials and different approaches in scale of region will be required in the future.