China Biographical Database

The China Biographical Database (CBDB) is a relational database on Chinese historical figures from the 7th to 19th centuries . The database provides biographical information (name, date of birth and death, ancestral place, degrees and offices held, kinship and social associations, etc.) of approximately 360,000 individuals up till April 2015.[1]

China Biographical Database (CBDB)
LanguagesEnglish, Chinese
Access
ProvidersFairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica, Center for Research on Ancient Chinese History at Peking University
Coverage
DisciplinesHumanities, Social Science
Temporal coverage7th - 19th centuries
Geospatial coverageChina
No. of recordsmore than 360,000 individuals

History

CBDB was originally started by the late Chinese historian Robert M. Hartwell.[2] Hartwell first conceived of using a relational database to study the social and family networks of Song Dynasty officials. Aware of the lack of large dataset research in social and economic history of medieval China, he took the first step to collect large sets of data himself and generate meaningful answers to historical changes through data analysis. One important legacy of Professor is program of massive data which he structured around

  1. people,
  2. places,
  3. a bureaucratic system,
  4. kinship structures and
  5. contemporary modes of social association.

Before his death Professor Hartwell bequeathed the program, which by then consisted of more than 25,000 individuals, a bibliographic database of over 4500 titles, and multiple geo-reference tools to the Harvard Yenching Institute.

Later, Michael A. Fuller, Professor of Chinese Literature at UC Irvine, started to redesign the application. Professor Peter K. Bol at Harvard also has disseminated extensive digital information for quantitative analysis. As a joint project of Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica (中研院歷史語言研究所), and Center for Research on Ancient Chinese History at Peking University (北京大學中國古代史研究中心), the database has been greatly expanded in temporal and coverage scope.

Sources

CBDB uses wide range of biographical sources to collect information about individuals. The main types of writings covered include biographical index, biography sections of official histories, funerary essays, epitaphs, local gazetteers, preface, writings, letters, and colophons in personal writing collections, and other governmental compiled records.[3]

CBDB is a long-term open-ended project. It has incorporated sources from biographical indexes 傳記資料索引 for Song 宋 (completed), Yuan 元 (completed), and Ming 明, birth-death dates for Qing 清 figures and listing of Song local officials. CBDB is also cooperating with other databases such as Ming Qing Women’s Writings (MQWW), Ming Qing Name Authority, and Pers-DB Knowledge Base of Tang Persons (Kyoto) to enrich its entries.[4]

Limitations

CBDB aims at extracting large amount of data from extant sources through data mining techniques. As a result, social and kinship associations, such as might be known from an individual’s literary collection, and funerary biographies are not exhaustive. Because of the nature of the sources, career data (e.g. ranks and positions a person held), will be biased toward higher offices. Since the database does not require in-depth research into each individuals, factual errors and contradictory information would also be included in the entries, as long as they are from the primary source.[5]

Geo-reference tools

One area in which CBDB could be used is prosopographical research.[6] By combining geographic information system (GIS) software with CBDB, patterns could be mapped out through queries generated from large datasets, for instance, who came from a certain place and what were the social and kinship connections among all those who entered government through the civil service examination from a certain place within a certain span of years, etc.[7] One useful geo-reference tool for the study of Chinese history is the China Historical GIS (CHGIS) project, which makes datasets of the administrative units between 221 BC and 1911 AD and major towns for the 1820–1911 period freely available. Other GIS software such as ArcGIS or MapInfo (or even GoogleEarth) are also compatible with CBDB output.

Commercial tax quotas as of 1077 and the success of localities in the civil service examinations during Northern Song
gollark: Ubgroducingt beds.
gollark: Alternatively, there just aren't that many people with the relevant skillsets who aren't doing other things, and none of them care about it/have gotten around to it.
gollark: Cheaper/easier personalization presumably.
gollark: I think people working on it are concerned about the potential for scams and such and are less willing to release models etc.
gollark: This makes me 40% more ethical than you probably.

See also

References
  1. "China Biographical Database Project (CBDB)". Projects.iq.harvard.edu. 2016-11-07. Retrieved 2016-12-11.
  2. Mostern, Ruth (2011). "Dividing the Realm in Order to Govern": The Spatial Organization of the Song State (960-1276 CE). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 10.
  3. Fuller, Michael A. (February 28, 2015). "The China Biographical Database User's Guide" (PDF). China Biographical Database.
  4. Reviews of Internet resources for Asian Studies. "Resource: China Biographical Database Project (CBDB) [New Release]" (Jan 2011, Vol. 18, No. 1, 320). The Asian Studies WWW Monitor.
  5. "New Approaches in Chinese Digital Humanities － CBDB and Digging into Data Workshop". Peking University. Office of International Relations. 2016-01-11. Archived from the original on 2016-07-01. Retrieved 2016-06-02.
  6. Gerritsen, Anne (2008). "Prosopography and its Potential for Middle Period Research (Workshop on the Prosopography of Middle Period China: Using the China Biographical Database)". Journal of Song-Yuan Studies. 38: 161–201.
  7. "China Biographical Database | Qing Studies". Qing_studies.press.jhu.edu. Archived from the original on 2017-01-10. Retrieved 2016-12-11.

Further reading
  • Peter K. Bol, Chao-Lin Liu, and Hongsu Wang, Mining and Discovering Biographical Information in Difangzhi with a Language-Model-based Approach[1]
  • Peter K. Bol, "The Late Robert M. Hartwell 'Chinese Historical Studies, Ltd.' Software Project," 1999[2]
  • Anne Gerritsen, "Using the CBDB for the study of women and gender? Some of the pitfalls" December 2007[3]
  • Fuller, Michael A. "The China Biographical Database User's Guide," February 28, 2015[4]
  • "Online Guide to Querying and Reporting System," Academia Sinica[5]
  1. Bol, Peter K.; Liu, Chao-Lin; Wang, Hongsu (2015). "Mining and Discovering Biographical Information in Difangzhi with a Language-Model-based Approach". arXiv:1504.02148 [cs.CL].
  2. Peter Bol. "The Late Robert M. Hartwell "Chinese Historical Studies, Ltd." Software Project" (PDF). Pnclink.org. Retrieved 2016-12-11.
  3. Anne Gerritsen. "Using the CBDB for the study of women and gender? Some of the pitfalls" (PDF). Humanities.uci.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-10. Retrieved 2016-12-11.
  4. Michael A. Fuller (February 28, 2015). "The China Biographical Database : User's Guide" (PDF). Projects.iq.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2016-12-11.
  5. "CBDB Querying and Reporting System - Online Help". Db1.ihp.sinica.edu.tw. Retrieved 2016-12-11.
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