Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

Since 1985 Seoul Metropolitan City have activated the historical markers for nationalistic promotion, without accumulating their diachronic history over thirty-odd years. As a case study, I aimed to build a concise history database(DB) of the historical markers in Jongno-gu, which has the largest share of numbers. Borrowing the methodologies of Historical Geographic Information System(HGIS), the history DB was constructed by the following three steps: digitizing spatial data, inputting attribute data and joining them each other. GIS software’s mapping function provided a visualized form of DB, showing the significant increase until the year of 2008 and the subsequent slowdown as well. The latter phenomenon mainly resulted from the locational verification conducted by scholars, which consequently led to a number of relocations or removals of mislocated historical markers. The history DB using HGIS methods basically benefits people from high accessibility to past information. It clearly mitigates physical obstacles when processing an enormous amount of data, especially in everyday life optimized for electronic devices. Moreover, given that all historical markers innately perform practical and symbolic functions at the same time, it guides the citizens through how to critically comprehend commemorative monuments of the city.