ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a new digital approach to the field of Taiwanese religion by building extensive religion databases and conducting sophisticated geospatial analysis. Our research in folk religions can be dated back to 2006 when the Center for Geographic Information Science, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica created the Cultural Resources Geographic Information System (https://crgis.rchss.sinica.edu.tw/). Since then, we have continued to collect information on temples, churches, historical monuments, buildings, and other space-based information related to local culture in Taiwan. In this chapter, we introduce the major religion databases and highlight how we designed the database of the Cultural Resources Geographic Information System. Collaborating with geospatial analysis, we further demonstrate how the Cultural Resources Geographic Information System has been applied in two folk studies in southern Taiwan: recording dynamic activity of religious processions in Tainan 台南and exploring religious space of Ma Ming Shan Zhen An Gong 馬鳴山鎮安宮in Yunlin 雲林.
