Introduction
For Geodata visualization, our team employed Folium, an open-source library for displaying geospatial data, as the tool for visualization. Folium allows us to mark the GPE (Geo-Political Entities) entities, such as countries, and cities on an interactive map. With some modifications to our data, we utilized Folium to make an interactive map with tags of places. By simply clicking the URL in tags, users could access the Hong Kong Early Tabloid Newspapers in the CUHK Digital Repository due to our integration works.
Our visualization product also divided the place name into three categories: “places in news”, “Axis Power”, and “the Allies”. Country names, such as Nippon and China, were categorized as “Axis Powers” and “the Allies”. These headlines were normally related to politics. Place names, such as Yangon and Hong Kong, were categorized as “places in news”. These headlines were mostly related to battle and war strategy. Users can obtain the information they need by filtering the buttons.
Besides, two historical maps have been chosen to place in our visualization product. Since the newspaper was published by Japan in World War II, our team chose the Pacific and North Burma maps, which were the main battlefields of Japan, to let users have the historical names and geographical information during the newspaper year. In addition, heatmap and heatmap with timeline have also been provided to show the frequency and distribution of the place mentioned in the headline.
To see the details of data items preparation for Folium, please follow the link to GitHub. Please initiate Colab Notebook for interactive code display.
Guide To Use
| 1. Zoom in/out | 3. Change Base Map |
| 2. Fullscreen | 4. Show Marker |
| 7. Link to our Repository | 5. Add Layer |
| 6. Search Location in News |
Interactive map (Full-screen button at top left)
Button Description on Top Right Corner
Axis Power: Germany, Italy, Japan and countries related to Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亜共栄圏)
The Allies: United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and Chungking Government
Northern Burma Map: Operations in Northern Burma December 1943 – April 1944 (Liddell Hart, 1970, p.514)
Pacific Map: Naval Operation of Northeast Front 北東方面海軍作戦 (坂本金美, 1969, 付図第一)
Copyright of the maps (Northern Burma Map, Pacific Map) belong to:
Liddell Hart, B. H. (1970). History of the Second World War. Cassell.
坂本金美. (1969). 北東方面海軍作戦. 朝雲新聞社.
Heatmap with Timeline (Full-screen button at top left corner)
Few Observations
Based on the heatmap, we found the places in the newspaper were concentrated in the regions below:
South China
The markers were concentrated at Hunan Province (湖南). Changde (常德) is one of the important place with 9 headlines have been found in newspaper. Most of them were related to Battle of Changde (常德會戰) in December 1943. Besides, an implict straight line connected from Hunan to Guangdong (廣東) and Guangxi (廣西) has been found. This may related to Tairiku Datsū Sakusen (大陸打通作戦) mindset of Japan and Operation Ichi-Go campaign (一号作戦) in 1944.
Myanmar (Burma)
The markers were concentrated in two areas: Northeast India and Southern Myanmar. In northeast India, 21 headlines have been found at Imphal. Most of the news were between March and April in 1944, which related to Battle of Imphal (ウ号作戦). Another main area is located at southern Myanmar, such as Yangon, Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Akyab. The headlines were mainly related to Burma campaign between 1942 and 1943.
South Pacific
Close to our prediction, many markers were concentrated at South Pacific, especially at Solomon Islands and New Guinea. Places such as Rabaul, Bougainville, Arawe and Guadalcanal, have been mentioned in many headlines. They were also the important battlefields in the Pacific War.
Tunisia
Tunisia is an outliner in our data. More than 50 headlines were related to this place. Most of them mentioned the battles in north Africa. Based on the heatmap with timeline, we also found the warfront retreat from North Africa to Italy started at March of 1943.
Acknowledgement
Folium — Folium 0.12.1 documentation (python-visualization.github.io)
Hong Kong Early Tabloid Newspapers 香港早期小報 | CUHK Digital Repository
Liddell Hart, B. H. (1970). History of the Second World War. Cassell.
坂本金美. (1969). 北東方面海軍作戦. 朝雲新聞社.
服部卓四郎. (1965). 大東亜戦爭全史. 原書房.