In recent years, along with the rise of Digital Humanities and database technologies, the field of Chinese studies also underwent a digital revolution with the applications of new electronic tools in different subfields. Despite the increased funding in these digital projects, only a few achieved long-term sustainability and even fewer generated in-depth analysis of data which has deepened our understanding of Chinese society and culture. Starting in the Fall of 2019, our RRS team had made incredible progress in documenting and visualizing the religious landscape of Hangzhou, China throughout Chinese history (with some maps on Taiwan and Japan as well). With a total of 46 maps available on the project website, some of the themes include:
- City wall boundaries in Hangzhou in Chinese history
- Distribution of Buddhist temples in Hangzhou from the Song dynasty to the modern period
- Distribution of Daoist temples in Hangzhou in the modern period
- Survey of lineage, popular religion in Fuqing, Fujian Province in the modern period
- Map-overlay content with William Skinner’s macroregions in China
Today, we are excited to announce that our project has reached a new level: with a renovated web page design as well as a magnificent StoryMap that guides viewers through historical Hangzhou in an interactive and innovative fashion.
The new RRS website: https://rrs.arizona.edu/
RRS StoryMap: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6f1fc88e594c4f1d9282c239fff08131
The StoryMap is also available on the University of Arizona library website on digital maps and projects: https://ualib-uagis.hub.arcgis.com/pages/showcase
The RRS Team:
Principal Investigator: Dr. Jiang Wu and Dr. Philip Stoker
Website Design: Glenn Ingram and Mattea Wallace
Data Assistant: Jeffrey Liu and Ziling Wan