Historical Geographical Information System : South India between 18^<th> and 20^<th> Century

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This project initially aimed the following four objectives. First was to digitize series of historical material of south India from the eighteenth century onwards and to convert the result of their analysis to Geographical Information System (GIS). A detailed database for tracing the historical change in the fields of caste, land use, landholding, produce sharing, village control, landlords, landholders, tax system and others was to be constructed. Second was to construct a theoretical frame to present historical changes as historical GIS and to publish it. Third was to provide guidance to those historians interested in historical GIS with information on technical problems and their solutions. Fourth was to present the result of the on-going research among the scholars in the field.With these objectives in mind, digitization of the records on mirasi right, zamindari settlement, village settlement, decennial census has been completed. The result of the analysis has been presented in different occasions in the seminars or lectures in Jawaharlal Nehru University, French Institute of Indology, University of Munich, Taiwan National University, Oxford University, London University and others. As a final result of the research a monograph titled "Social and Spatial Structure of Pre-colonial South India" has been completed and submitted herewith. The Japanese and the English versions of the monograph will be published separately in 2008 from some publishers in Japan and in India. Preparation for another book on historical GIS is now under progress, and will be published with some others in a collected essay titled "Asian Studies and GIS" next year.