ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the procedures used and the problems encountered in constructing spatial databases from old paper documents. Geographical information systems (GIS) holds the promise of extending the horizon of historical studies in many respects. Possibly the most important contribution of GIS to historical studies is the generation of clear spatial images by integrating various facets of information, and it is useful to summarize some of the more notable features of historical GIS studies at this stage. The technical aspects relating to document-based data using GIS will be discussed by Sadahiro in Chapter 3, and a historical analysis of southern India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, based upon a constructed spatial database from old paper documents, will be attempted in Chapter 6.
