Historical-Geographical Research of the Travels and Travel Records by British Travelers in the 19^<th> Century

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In this research, we studied travels and travel records mainly in Asian regions by British people in the 19^<th> century from the interdisciplinary viewpoint of historical geography, history and linguistics. The outputs of our research have been published not only in the academic domain but also in the general audience.The results of our research are summarized into several subjects as follows : (I)studies on British travelers and their records, (II)field studies concerning travels by British people, (III)reconstructions of travel routes using maps and satellite images, (IV)compilation of a bibliography of the records about British travelers. As for the subject (I), we made effort in translating the original English sources such as Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan into Japanese. We also studied theoretical aspects of travelers, especially Isabella Bird, and of travel records about the regions such as Japan, Persia, Tibet and Siberia. As for the subject (II), we researched Bird's important work in the fourth stage of her life, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, and two important works in her fifth stage, i.e. Korea & Her Neighbors and The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, and proposed our new interpretation of her records. We also implemented our new idea of twin time travel to the general audience. As for the subject (III), we examined Bird's travel route in the Yangtze Valley in the higher precision than ever using 1:100,000 scale maps. We also reviewed the possibility of utilizing satellite images in the study of travel routes in the examples of the Middle East. For further researches in the future, we compiled bibliographical resources on the research subject.