Culturally significant locations around the nation are to feature on an online map on the government’s “Taiwan Geospatial One Stop Portal” in a joint effort by the Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica and the Ministry of the Interior.
The project would create a central depository for data gathered through local historical research conducted for the government’s community development projects, center geographical information systems project planner Chang Yun-shu (張耘書) said on Tuesday.
The cultural project would be a tool for research and tourism-related public policy, Chang told a workshop held by the center and the National Cheng Kung University Department of Urban Planning.
“The [development] projects have generated vast troves of materials and maps that were unfortunately left underutilized at the projects’ conclusion,” Chang said. “Local communities need a digital platform that integrates all of the field research and interviews that went into those projects.”
The center makes use of the portal, which is managed by the Ministry of the Interior, he said.
The project would create a spatially organized digital archive for history, cultural practices, development of the enterprises and landmarks on a local level, Chang said.
It would include places of significance for Taiwanese folk religion — such as temples dedicated to third-century general-turned-deity Guan Gong (關公); the Damujiang Shibaroa (大目降十八嬈) procession; the Kinmen battlefields — and Taiwan’s first dining establishment, the Uguisu, Chang said.
The project would help promote tourism by organizing information about local attractions on an online map that visitors can consult, he said.
Tainan’s Guanmiao District Office (關廟) and the district’s Shansi Temple (山西宮) have collaborated with the center to publish information on this year’s Wangjiao ceremony, which is held every 12 years, he said.
The center is also compiling a map of houses in Tainan that are said to be haunted, Chang said.
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