Experience of creating a set of data for mapping the district of the XVIII–XX centuries (By the example of Ardatov district of Simbirsk province)

Abstract

In historical and geographical research, when analyzing the formation, founding and development of territories, maps are of particular value. This article describes the experience of mapping the territory of Ardatovsky district of Simbirsk province in the 18th–20th centuries. The history of the formation of the county covers 150 years. Since its formation, the county has gone through various transformations, as a result of which the territory, the composition of settlements, their name and administrative affiliation have changed. After studying the historical and geographical features of the territory formation, it was decided to compile several maps of the county at different times so that they characterize the main periods of its existence. For this purpose, three eras were chosen, corresponding to 1780, 1859 and 1927. In the work presented by this article, various cartographic, accounting, statistical and literary sources were selected and studied, which were used to create maps for the territory of Ardatovsky district of the late 18th—early 20th centuries. These were both historical and modern maps, as well as modern materials—ready-made vector layers and a database of settlements in the Republic of Mordovia. The sources of the middle of the 19th century were recognized as the most complete, reliable and meeting the objectives of this study. Therefore, at the first stage of the work, the network of settlements of the county was reconstructed for this time period by geocoding in the GIS a list of settlements in the Simbirsk province, presented in the form of an electronic table. A specially prepared point layer of settlements was used as the initial spatially coordinated information. To create it, various cartographic and archival materials, statistical and reference sources were involved. At the second stage, the county border and the road network were adjusted. For each of the three epochs mentioned above, similar sets of spatial data were formed, on the basis of which maps of Ardatovsky district were compiled using the methods of geoinformation mapping.