Lab 3 Neogeography

View Along the Yangzi River in a larger map

According to archaeological accounts, the Yangtze River/Changjiang already existed when China started its civilization more than 5000 years ago. Despite its importance, a lot of people tended to focus on looking at the Yellow River, which is North of the Yangtze, because most of the really important cultural artifacts and archaeological sites which suggest the power of China were found along it. However, nowadays, the focus is more and more given to the Yangtze river because of the increasing amount of development along it and people's realization of its importance to the Chinese civilization. As a Chinese archaeologist, I believe it is important for me to increase people's attention to the river because of the increasing finds and developments along it and the huge amount of resources it provides to the livelihood of the Chinese. Therefore I have created this map "Along the Yangtze River" linking the four rivers (Tuotuo River, Tongtian River, Jinsha River and Changjiang) which combined into the Yangtze River, as indicated by the blue line. On the other hand, the red line shown on the map depicts a route linking important archaeological sites and modern developments in the major cities (Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, SiChuan, Yunan, and Qinghai) that the Yangtze River flows through. By plotting these points on the map, we can see that the Yangtze River is important in both past and present, and since not a lot of people know the actual flow of the Yangtze, therefore this map allows viewers to visualize how the river flows from West to East.

Neogeography allows both amateurs and experts to easily create a map that they desire without the need to handle complicated technological resources. For example, my map was easy to create simply by searching for the specific places that I typed in on googlemaps and also by tracing the different rivers and connect them with a line because of the pre-existing information provided. On the other hand, it allows viewers to easily visualize and understand what I tended to present, that is, the river itself and also the locations of the archaeological sites and the modern developments. And it does not require additional specialized knowledge about geography or cartography to understand what I presented. Moreover, users can be able to post pictures or videos thus merging both cartographical and real world representations so to create an easy-to-read and resourceful map to convey their main purpose and increase the significance of the issue portrayed.

Nevertheless, after plotting this map, I realize that neogeography has its own pitfalls too. First of all, the data being added and stored cannot be too large. For example, when I tried to plot blue line from Shanghai to Qinghai precisely by zooming in and plotting in the actual curve of the meander, it was not possible for googlemaps to save and therefore I have to plot it with separate straight lines. Second, the resolution of the locations when zoomed in might be low and therefore could not allow us to precisely look at the actual features on the ground. Third, the points that users intend to plot might sometimes be inaccurate because the maps might not contain all of the geographic information either due to the fact that it is not updated or that the place was too insignificant to be recorded in the first place. And the information that the neogeographer provides might be too subjective and might therefore mislead the viewer.

Sources:

Yangtze River source: http://img8.itiexue.net/1092/10926752.jpg

Qingzang Railway:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrXguB8o8bk

Lijiang Ancient City:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiK0rw-E0eE&feature=related

San Xing Dui Archaeological remains:http://lh5.ggpht.com/_N6v9j1PlOvc/SchOz3bhQeI/AAAAAAAABJQ/db-o-PwiFFA/s800/20090306-15天津-三星堆-成都.jpg

Three Gorges Dam, Yichang, China:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9CJQLyufJ6LzlGvWs_jW_mKPROxJO2_9DRQX60GegKSXo4jn1BRVYEaHVwvP32Q3cuQSoEeXGHUVm3lqAuDB4EHKtzETQFKAnuE48-w3Se0iWtjMTMR0D7PAmH4asqck4LWCgHrpsBLE/s320/三峽大壩1.jpg

Changsha Hunan Museum:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcYthkmUYCc

Eastern Zhou Dynasty tomb:http://culture.people.com.cn/GB/22219/6779297.html

Xiangshujian Pumping Water and Storing energy power station:http://ido.thethirdmedia.com/article/frame.aspx?turl=http%3a//ido.3mt.com.cn/article/200803/show928543c33p1.ibod&rurl=&title=%u5B89%u5FBD%u8003%u53E4%u53D1%u6398%u51FA%u516D%u5343%u5C81%u9057%u5740_%u5B89%u5FBD%u5C06%u5DE2%u6E56%u6253%u9020%u6210%u4E3A%u5168%u56FD%u8457%u540D%u7684%u65C5%u6E38%u5EA6%u5047%u80DC%u5730%20---%20ido.3mt.com.cn

Words more than a thousand years older than Oracle Bone inscriptions:http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2003-10-24/1719985504s.shtml

Gyangfulin Culture Archaeological site:http://news.163.com/08/0626/21/4FD42DA9000120GU.html

Yangtze River Mouth:http://news.xinhuanet.com/photo/2006-09/28/xinsrc_13209032822070151670374.jpg