Compute a crowdedness index on historical GIS data : a case study of Hög Parish, Sweden, 1812-1920

Sammanfattning: As the development of human civilizations, the classic definition of crowdedness index or population density is not able to describe population dynamic conciliations properly. Furthermore, the detailed population information is normally only stay on urban or country levels. Methods to compute crowdedness index of a small scale-area are lacked. Demographers need some new methods to compute human crowdedness index. In recent years, geographical information techniques have played an important role in historical demography studies. Most researches are based on historical GIS database. The aim of this project is to evaluate current crowdedness indexes and develop new indexes based on historical demographical and geographical data. In this project, two current crowdedness indexes are reviewed in the study area Hög parish. It also develop some new crowdedness index of buildings, two population’s crowdedness indexes, and also two crowdedness indexes of divided property unit in the study area. In addition, all the indexesare evaluated and discussed based one a set of test evaluations. Conclusions are made based on those case studies and evaluations. From the study results and evaluations, a building crowdedness index method is suitable for this case; all of the three population crowdedness index (social interaction index, betweenness centrality and church index) are suitable for this case study; and finally both two property unit population indexes are able to compute results but also need to be developed as well. However, the test analyses are only based on a small study area with limited buildings, populations. Some developed index methods do not provide satisfactory results. For the further study, more cases should be tested and development of every method should be done.