China Historical Christian Database: Mapping the Spatial and Social Networks of Christianity in China, 1550-1950
FAIN: HAA-280992-21
Boston University (Boston, MA 02215-1300)
Daryl Ray Ireland (Project Director: January 2021 to present)
Eugenio Menegon (Co Project Director: June 2021 to present)
The development of the China Historical Christian Database that seeks to map and visualize the relationships among Chinese Christians, missionaries, and the people with whom they interacted from 1550-1950.
The China Historical Christian Database quantifies and visualizes the place of Christianity in modern China (1550-1950). It provides users the tools to discover where every Christian church, school, hospital, orphanage, publishing house, and the like were located in China, and it documents who worked inside those buildings, both foreign and Chinese. Collectively, this information creates spatial maps and generates relational networks that reveal where, when, and how Western ideas, technologies, and practices entered China. Simultaneously, it uncovers how and through whom Chinese ideas, technologies, and practices were conveyed to the West. This project breaks new ground in providing quantifiable data about modern Sino-Western relations. Scholars can interact with the data through an intuitive website, while advanced users have open access to the CHCD’s data for elaboration. Boston University’s digital infrastructure guarantees the project’s long-term sustainability.
Media Coverage
Mapping China’s Christian Legacy: The Story of the China Historical Christian Database (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Daryl Ireland, Alex Mayfield, Eugenio Menegon
Publication: ChinaSource
Date: 11/10/2023
Abstract: This is an introduction to the CHCD, a new tool for researching Christianity and China.
URL: https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/blog-entries/mapping-chinas-christian-legacy
绘制中国基督教遗产：中国基督教历史资料库的故事 (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Daryl Ireland, Alex Mayfield, Eugenio Menegon
Publication: Christian Times
Date: 12/21/2023
Abstract: An introduction to the CHCD, a new tool for conducting research on Christianity and China.
URL: https://www.christiantimes.cn/news/40708.
What’s Behind the Boom of Christianity in China? (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Daryl Ireland, Eugenio Menegon
Publication: The Brink
Date: 3/1/2023
Abstract: An exploration into the ways the CHCD is changing the way people think about Christianity and China.
URL: https://www.bu.edu/articles/2023/why-is-christianity-growing-in-china
Associated Products
The China Historical Christian Database: Seeing the Past Differently (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: The China Historical Christian Database: Seeing the Past Differently
Author: Alex Mayfield
Abstract: For a workshop on seeing East Asia through new sources, this paper will introduce the China Historical Christian Database. It is not an archive, as such, but a collection of hundreds of thousands of data points lifted from archival material. The result is a different image of Asia than is glimpsed through letters and journals. Instead it is an aggregate picture of what place Christianity held in Chinese society.
Date: 12/06/2021
Conference Name: New England Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting
Where are the Humans in Digital Humanities? (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Where are the Humans in Digital Humanities?
Author: Eugenio Menegon
Author: Alex Mayfield
Abstract: Digital scholarship provides new possibilities for examining the past. This paper explores how the China Historical Christian Database is trying to revisit the history of Christianity in China through geographic and social network maps, and how that can shed new light on important questions such as modernization, the evolution of science, religious change, and Sino-Western relations. However, digital tools can also flatten out history, reducing the complex lives of people to 1s or 0s. In a Digital Humanities project, how can computers enhance and enrich our understanding of human lives, rather than reduce or diminish them?
Date: 12/09/2021
Conference Name: Institute of Qing History's Conference on Digital Humanities
Leaping (and Bridging) the Digital Gorge: Development, User-Experience, and the China Historical Christian Database (Article)Title: Leaping (and Bridging) the Digital Gorge: Development, User-Experience, and the China Historical Christian Database
Author: Alex Mayfield
Author: Daryl Ireland
Author: Eugenio Menegon
Abstract: This essay explores how user experience is important for the development of effective tools in the Digital Humanities.
Year: 2022
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Digital Humanities 數字人文
Publisher: Tsinghua University
The Future of Sino-Western Relations is in its Past (Public Lecture or Presentation)Title: The Future of Sino-Western Relations is in its Past
Abstract: Why does the history of Christianity in China provide new pathways for considering Sino-Western relations?
Author: Eugenio Menegon
Author: Daryl Ireland
Date: 05/11/22
Location: L'Orientale University, Naples, Italy
Multiplying by Dividing: The Growth of Bible Schools in China, 1900-1920 (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Multiplying by Dividing: The Growth of Bible Schools in China, 1900-1920
Author: Daryl Ireland
Abstract: Bible Schools and Bible Institutes rapidly multiplied at the beginning of the 20th century, far outpacing the growth of any other kind of theological institution. Why was that, and what impact did it have on Chinese Christianity?
Date: 01/04/24
Conference Name: American Society of Church History
Big Data and the Reconfiguration of Chinese Christian History (Public Lecture or Presentation)Title: Big Data and the Reconfiguration of Chinese Christian History
Abstract: The CHCD is changing the way we think about Christianity in China. Massive amounts of data, that cut across Christian traditions, allows new discoveries to emerge. For example, the role of women in Chinese Christianity is shown to be far more prominent than earlier studies had imagined.
Author: Eugenio Menegon
Author: Daryl Ireland
Date: 04/19/23
Location: Boston University
Christianity as a Women’s Movement?: Hard Data from China (Public Lecture or Presentation)Title: Christianity as a Women’s Movement?: Hard Data from China
Abstract: The role of women is an important topic in religion, but it has been difficult to quantify. The CHCD, however, specializes in quantification and allows a new picture of their place in Chinese Christianity to emerge.
Author: Alex Mayfield
Author: Daryl Ireland
Date: 04/04/23
Location: Online Symposium
Testing the Claim: The Sino-Foreign Protestant Enterprise as a Women’s Mission Movement (Conference Paper/Presentation)Title: Testing the Claim: The Sino-Foreign Protestant Enterprise as a Women’s Mission Movement
Author: Alex Mayfield
Author: Daryl Ireland
Abstract: It has been claimed that women in China began to take on new roles in the second quarter of the 20th century, including new religious roles. Does the data justify that claim? This paper demonstrates that Christian women, in fact, began that transition to more public roles at least a generation earlier.
Date: 03/03/23
Conference Name: Wesleyan Theological Society
From Civilisational Encounter to Microhistories: Putting Western Learning in Local Places (Article)Title: From Civilisational Encounter to Microhistories: Putting Western Learning in Local Places
Author: Wu Huiyi
Abstract: A historiographical article about the changing way of doing history in China.
Year: 2023
Primary URL:
https://hal.science/hal-03925824Access Model: Open Access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine
Publisher: HAL Open Science