Modern China Geospatial Database - Main Dataset

MCGD_Data_V2.2 contains all the data that we have collected on locations in modern China, plus a number of locations outside of China that we encounter frequently in historical sources on China. Altogether there are 464,984 entries. The data include the name of locations and their variants in Chinese, pinyin, and any recorded transliteration; the name of the province in Chinese and in pinyin; Province ID; the latitude and longitude; the Name ID and Location ID, and NameID_Legacy. The Name IDs all start with H followed by seven digits. This is the internal ID system of MCGD (the NameID_Legacy column records the Name IDs in their original format depending on the source). Locations IDs that start with "DH" are data points extracted from China Historical GIS (Harvard University); those that start with "D" are locations extracted from the data points in Geonames; those that have only digits (8 digits) are data points we have added from various map sources.

One of the main features of the MCGD Main Dataset is the systematic collection and compilation of place names from non-Chinese language historical sources. Locations were designated in transliteration systems that are hardly comprehensible today, which makes it very difficult to find the actual locations they correspond to. This dataset allows for the conversion from these obsolete transliterations to the current names and geocoordinates.