This dataset examines the impact of Marco Polo's travels on Christian missionary diffusion and economic development at the prefecture level in historical China. It includes variables such as prefectures mentioned by Marco Polo and years since missionaries' first arrival, with data also collected for European and Indian contexts. The dataset was created by Zhiwu Chen.
Use Cases
- Analyze the relationship between prefectures mentioned by Marco Polo and the timing of missionaries' first arrival to assess diffusion patterns.
- Model the impact of years since missionaries' first arrival on regional economic development indicators in historical China.
- Compare the diffusion of Christian missionaries in Polo-mentioned prefectures in China with parallel data from European and Indian contexts.
Strengths
- Data is derived from primary historical sources: prefectures are identified from 'The Travels of Marco Polo' and missionary arrival years from individual biographies.
- The analysis unit is the prefecture level, providing a granular spatial scale for studying historical diffusion.
- The dataset includes comparative data from European and Indian contexts to demonstrate impact beyond China.
Limitations
- The dataset's temporal coverage from 1275 to 1842 may present challenges in data consistency and record completeness over centuries.
- Reliance on historical texts like 'The Travels of Marco Polo' for variable construction may introduce interpretive bias or gaps in coverage.
- Key quantitative details such as row count, column count, and file formats are unknown, limiting assessment of dataset scale and structure.
Provenance
- Source
- ICPSR Harvested Dataverse
- Collection Method
- Prefectures mentioned by Marco Polo were identified from 'The Travels of Marco Polo'; years since missionaries' first arrival were calculated from individual missionary biographies.
- Time Range
- 1275-1842
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Prefecture-level historical China, with additional data from European and Indian contexts.