The networks of marketplaces in the middle of Shandong during the late Qing dynasty and republic of China, basing on the local gazetteers

Abstract: Our project aims to analyze networks of marketplaces in two prefectures of Shandong during the late Qing dynasty and republic of China. Our main source of records comes from local gazetteers which recorded locations and opening dates of marketplaces in the region. Developing based on William Skinner's work, Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China, in which he set the foundation of studying marketplaces and taking notice of their different opening periods, our team extracts more than 900 records of marketplaces from gazetteers, and visualizes their relationships through Gephi and GIS. Our main objectives to decipher are (1) the competing/complementing relationship between any two markets in a larger network; (2) percentages of different types of markets based on their sizes in a given region; (3) GIS mapping of marketplaces and the geographical relationships between them.

# Team members

  • Luo Jingxi, Renmin University of China,Historical Geography
  • LIU Chaoran,Tsinghua University,Chinese History
  • Zixi (Peter) ZHANG, Columbia University, Chinese History
  • LIU Yan, FUDAN University, Chinese History
  • Yan Chihao, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Statistics

# Supervisor