Abstract
As a symbol language, toponyms have inherited the unique local historical culture in the long process of historical development. As the birthplace of Manchu, there are many toponyms originated from multi-ethnic groups (e.g., Manchu, Mongol, Korean, Hui, and Xibe) in Northeast China which possess unique cultural connotations. This study aimed to (1) establish a spatial-temporal database of toponyms in Northeast China using a multi-source data set, and identify their ethnic types and origin times; and (2) explore the geographical distribution characteristics of ethnic toponyms and the evolution of rural settlements by comparing the spatial analysis and spatial information entropy methods. The results found that toponyms reflect not only the spatial distribution characteristics of the density and direction of ethnic groups, but also the migration law of rural settlements. Results also confirm that toponyms contain unique cultural connotations and provide a theoretical basis for the protection and promotion of the cultural connotations of toponyms. This research provides an entropic perspective and method for exploring the spatial-temporal evolutionary characteristics of ethnic groups and toponym mapping.
Highlights
Toponyms represent geographical locations, and represent spatial entities
We developed a database of toponyms for Northeast China based on the National Database for Geographical Names of China [22], mainly for Northeast China based on the National Database for Geographical Names of China[22], mainly including urban residential areas, rural residential areas, village committees, agricultural, forestry and including urban residential areas, rural residential areas, village committees, agricultural, forestry pasture sites, industrial areas, public institutions, party, and government organizations
The analysis results of the two ellipses had the same direction which were distributed along the “wicker border” edge, which refers to the dyke ditches built in Northeast China in the second half of the 17th century
Summary
Toponyms represent geographical locations, and represent spatial entities. As carriers of geographic information, toponyms interpret the evolution of geographical environments at a small scale and play important roles as mediums in the research field [1,2]. This has such significant value for studying the history of a region that Fudan University and Harvard University collaborated together on the establishment of the China Historical Geographic Information System (CHGIS) project which aims to create a set of basic geographic information for the study of continuous changes in Chinese historical periods, as well as providing a GIS data platform, time statistics, searching tools, and models for related researchers [3,4,5,6]. As symbols of precious cultural heritage, the toponyms preserve the abundant language materials and accumulate a unique cultural connotation to a certain extent but can reflect the local cultural characteristics, can serve as "living fossils" of the study of history and culture, and describe the history of all ethnic groups’ cultural blending and Entropy 2020, 22, 393; doi:10.3390/e22040393 www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy
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