JGI Seed Corn Funding Project Blog 2023/24: Thomas Larkin
Introduction
Mapping Historic Hong Kong (MHHK) is a pilot project designed to spatially organise visual and written archival documents into an interactive platform that maps Hong Kong’s colonial development.
Project aims
This first stage of the MHHK project aimed to showcase the applications GIS mapping had for rethinking how scholars and the public access Hong Kong’s spatial history and heritage. Our goal for this seed project was to demonstrate how a mapping platform could serve as a ‘container’ for a wide range of spatial and archival historical data, while providing users with an intuitive way to parse information according to time and location. We prioritised developing the project’s capacity to link users to partner archives such as the Historical Photographs of China (HPC) project, and to incorporate flexible data formats.
For our proof-of-concept we proposed to (1) build a suite of base maps from archival materials which were geographically corrected and overlaid using QGIS; (2) identify amongst these maps a viable case study year to demonstrate the project’s intended capabilities; and (3) to conduct sufficient archival research to populate one map with images and registry data so as to give a sense of the project’s functions.
What was achieved
The project progressed in three stages in partnership with Mark McLaren and the ResearchIT team at the University of Bristol, and with a Research Assistant, Alex Cheung, affiliated with Bristol’s Hong Kong History Centre.
1) Thomas Larkin, as project Co-PI, developed a suite of four maps in QGIS which made up the base of the project. This process included scouting viable archival maps (figure I) that demonstrated a snapshot of Hong Kong’s growth between 1842 and 1997; warping these maps using the QGIS program so that they shared the same geographic coordinates and could be precisely overlaid; and then converting the information in the archival maps into assets (roads, lots, parks, landmasses, etc) that corresponded with a database. Larkin then worked with the HPC archivists to isolate a sample year (1905) that had sufficient photographs on file to represent the project’s visual and cross-archival capabilities. We ultimately elected to select images from within a date range (1905-1915) for this concept phase of the project.
2) With a sample year isolated, Alex Cheung, the project RA, collected archived land registries (figure II) from Hong Kong’s Public Records Office (figure III) in May 2024. With Cheung’s contributions, we were able to add property data (memorial numbers, lot numbers, lot holders, lot types, etc) for roughly half the assets in our 1905 map.
3) Once enough images and land registry data were recorded for the relevant 1905 assets, the project was turned over to Mark McLaren of ResearchIT. McLaren worked through several builds as he received updated maps and data (figure IV), at one point even experimenting with using AI to locate images (figure V) to some effect. The most recent build (figure VI) offers an effective example of what our platform will be able to do, as users can filter the maps of Hong Kong by date – the shorelines overlaid over a contemporary map tell a particularly effective narrative of historical change – click the assets in the 1905 map to pull up registry data and images associated with the relevant location, and click the image thumbnails to be taken to the HPC archive where more detailed information can be found. The demonstrator includes a collapsible legend, asset filters, a date slider and sidebar that is populated with archival data and image thumbnails when a relevant lot is selected on the map.
At the end of this exploratory project, we therefore have an effective proof of concept that demonstrates the efficacy of our platform as well as its clear potential to:
- Incorporate a diverse range of data and spatial information
- Communicate this information effectively to the public and experts alike
- Connect archives and provide a visual means of navigating their holdings
- And collaborate with spatial projects on the history of Hong Kong
Future plans
The key opportunity arising from this project stems from both its ability to aggregate data from and drive traffic to other spatial projects and archives; and from the groundswell of interest in spatial histories amongst scholars of Hong Kong. To this end, MHHK was designed to be collaborative, and a trip to Hong Kong in June 2024 was leveraged to meet with future partners and coordinate our discrete spatial history initiatives into a central and collaborative platform of which MHHK would be a pillar. The reception to this plan was overwhelmingly positive, and we are currently exploring avenues for follow-on funding to expand the MHHK and other spatial history platforms with colleagues at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, and Lingnan in Hong Kong; the University of Bristol’s Hong Kong History Centre in the UK; and the University of Prince Edward Island’s GeoREACH Lab in Canada.
Contact details & Links
PI’s: Thomas M Larkin (University of Prince Edward Island); Robert Bickers (University of Bristol)
Emails:
- PI – thomaslarkin@upei.ca
- Hong Kong History Centre – hkhistory-project@bristol.ac.uk