Protestant Missionary Education and the Diffusion of Women’s Education in Ottoman Turkey: A Historical GIS Analysis

A significant literature demonstrates that the presence of historic missionary societies—especially Protestant societies—during the colonial period is significantly and positively associated with increased educational attainment and economic outcomes. However, we know less about the mechanisms underlying the long-run consequences of institutions, as it is commonly very hard to disentangle direct effects from indirect effects. One clear way to do so, however, is to explore the long-term impact of missionary influence in places in which the direct beneficiaries of missionary education are no longer present. The present article considers one such region, the Anatolian region of the Ottoman Empire. Due to the ethnic violence and population movements at the start of the twentieth century, the newfound Turkish nation-state was largely religiously homogenous. This provides us with a unique situation to empirically assess the long-run indirect effects of Christian missionary societies on local human capital. For this purpose, I present an original dataset that provides the locations of Protestant mission stations and schools, Ottoman state-run schools, and Armenian community schools contained within Ottoman Anatolia between 1820 and 1914. Contrary to the common association found in the literature, this study does not find missionary presence to be correlated with modern-day schooling. Rather, I find that regions with a heightened missionary presence and an active Christian educational market perform better on the gender parity index for pretertiary schooling during both the Ottoman and Turkish periods.

The importance of historical maps for man-made pond research: From the past extent of ponds to issues of the present landscape. A case study from the Czech Republic

Historical maps are a valuable resource in landscape research. The information gathered from them facilitates the cognisance of landscapes and may assist current landscape planning. This study focuses on the historical occurrence and spatial extent of man-made ponds in the Czech Republic. Based on the 1st Military Survey maps (1764–1783) of the Habsburg Monarchy, we use Historical GIS to identify 7,676 man-made ponds in the historical landscape. Compared to the 2nd Military Survey maps (1836–1852), 56% of these man-made ponds had been drained. Such disappearances mostly affected large ponds in fertile agricultural areas, but also affected small reservoirs in less fertile areas at higher altitudes. As the current maps and spatial datasets (Water reservoirs, Landscape water regime, Farming areas) show, a number of these agricultural regions have been affected by climate changes and face water shortages. The historical map information of former ponds has the potential to contribute to their restoration in areas where water retention in the landscape needs to be increased.

Historical GIS as a Tool for Monitoring, Preserving and Planning Forest Landscape: A Case Study in a Mediterranean Region

In order to assess the dynamics of forests and the effectiveness of their management strategies, it is necessary to develop monitoring systems based on qualitative and quantitative tools for their conservation, valorization and restoration. This approach is particularly important for areas that have undergone intense anthropogenic transformations in the last century. In order to do this, it is first necessary to apply a chronological methodology based on historical GIS that allows the integration of different types of geodata. As a result of constantly evolving spatial analysis tools, the monitoring of landscape forest evolution is increasingly more effective and complete. Using as a case study a region representative of common processes of other Mediterranean areas (Southern Italy–Basilicata region), a diachronic analysis of 156 years was applied to evaluate the forest landscape dynamics. Starting from historical cartographies to remotely sensed data available online, a GIS-based approach was implemented to evaluate the spatial and statistical variations of the forest landscape. In this way, it was possible to assess how much, where and how the forest landscape has changed in order to provide a methodology to support more detailed and sectoral studies.

Informazione bibliografica

L'Informazione bibliografica del numero 2/2021 della «Rivista Geografica Italiana» presenta le recensioni dei seguenti testi. Rachele Borghi, Decolonialità e privilegio. Pratiche femministe e critica al sistema-mondo (Marcella Schmidt di Friedberg) Mauro Varotto, Montagne di mezzo. Una nuova geografia (Giacomo Pettenati)  Alberto Magnaghi, Il principio territoriale (Giuseppe Dematteis) Domenico Cersosimo, Carmine Donzelli, a cura di, Manifesto per riabitare l'Italia (Matteo Puttilli) Luca Gaeta, Alice Buoli, a cura di, Transdisciplinary Views on Boundaries. Towards a New Lexicon (Anna Casaglia) Massimiliano Grava, Camillo Berti, Nicola Gabellieri, Arturo Gallia, Historical GIS. Strumenti digitali per la geografia storica (Anna Guarducci) Stefano Piastra, Shanghai nella letteratura di viaggio italiana. Realtà e percezione di un emporio fluviale diventato megalopoli (Sara Giovansana) Simone Betti, Geografia sportiva del Nordamerica. La geografia sulle magliette (Anna Maria Pioletti) Per leggere i contributi integralmente, cliccare sul quadratino in alto denominato "PDF".

Free Map Services (Google, Yandex, OSM) for Creating historical GIS: Digital Map of the Trans-Siberian Railroad

The article describes technological aspects of digital historical map creation taking as an example the 1891–1916 Trans-Siberian Railroad map. The author faced two tasks. On the one hand, he wanted to create a historical GIS map in shapefile format; on the other hand his goal was to tell us about software tools and data which proved to be most suitable for solving the first task. Present day map services can be of use at the initial stage of digital map creation in case most of objects coincide with current ones. It is important however to know where discrepancies begin. The author studies various open access map services both corporate (Google, Yandex, Bing) and those created by many users on a crowd sourcing basis (OpenStreetMap, Wikimapia). He pays particular attention to work with Google Earth application which he considers to suit better than specialized GIS applications for the initial formation of a set of objects on the map (in this case, railway lines). The author compares open map services in particular those providing access to aerial (satellite) images of the Earth and addresses different kinds of cartographic systems properties as useful tools for historical GIS creation (satellite images, panoramic photos, the Wiki mode user comments, etc.).

A Line of Blood and Dirt

This book examines the creation and enforcement of the border between Canada and the United States from 1775 until 1939. Built with Indigenous labor and on top of Indigenous land, the border was born in conflict. Federal administrators used deprivation, starvation, and coercion to displace Indigenous communities and undermine their conceptions of territory and sovereignty. European, African American, Chinese, Cree, Assiniboine, Dakota, Lakota, Nimiipuu, Coast Salish, Ojibwe, and Haudenosaunee communities faced a diversity of border closure experiences and timelines. Unevenness and variation served as hallmarks of the border as federal officials in each country committed to a kind of border power that was diffuse and far-reaching. Utilizing historical GIS, this book showcases how regional conflicts, political reorganization, and social upheaval created the Canada–US border and remade the communities who lived in its shadows.

Population size in the space of parishes of the Kolyvano-Voskresensky mountain district in the second half of the 18th century: GIS capabilities for analyzing data sets

As a key task, the authors consider the issue of creating historical GIS that allow analyzing the distribution of data on the population by church parishes. As well as a model for constructing the boundaries of parishes is proposed. Based on statistical data concentrated in GIS, a series of maps has been developed that reflect the population size within the boundaries of parishes for several time periods. The types of parishes existing in the Barnaul spiritual government (urban, at factories, rural, at military fortifications, at mines) are highlighted, the dynamics of the population size is analyzed both within the framework of individual parishes and within the boundaries of the selected types.