Coal supply in the German Empire

Map of the Coal supply in the German Empire, in 1881.

Main ideas

• To study the coal supply and demand of the German Empire for the year 1881.
• Interactive visualization of Germany's main coal production and consumption centers.
• Dynamic visualization of coal transport flows according to the different mining basins and transport routes.
• Differentiating the production and consumption centers from the transport hubs.
• Inspiration for presenting the data: https://vimeo.com/250033884
• Creation of a website to present the results.
• Interpretation of the results: the role of coal in the German Unification (Macroeconomic aspects of German unification preceding the political unification).

Further possible upgrades

• Finding a way to make the website generic: if another data set was available (either a different time or a different commodity), could it be processed by our algorithm and be represented graphically in an easy way.
• Compare the supply of the time with an optimized computerized supply.
• Further analyze coal consumption data by cities in relation to the main industries of the time.
• Observe the correlation of coal production and consumption at the time with the level of subsequent economic development of cities, in an attempt to quantify the economic impact of this strategic resource.
• Highlighting the possible parallels between the role of coal in the German unification and the European unification (European Coal and Steel Community).

Project plan and milestones

Project plan

Our goal in this project is to manually extract and to interactively visualize the data on coal production, consumption and transport in 1881 Germany based on a contemporaneous map.

In order to do that, we will first study the map's representation of coal's supply and demand of the German Empire and we will arbitrarily select cities based on their relative importance either as suppliers, consumers or transport hubs. We will then take physical measurements of the map's visual representations and convert those measurements into a numerical dataset based on the map's legend and scale.

Subsequently, we will code an algorithm to treat that dataset and convert it into a dynamic visualization of coal transport flows according to the different mining basins, consumption centers, and transport routes. We will then create a website allowing the user to study separately the supply and demand of important cities, the trade routes as well as the trade hubs. It will also be possible to view separately the cities which have the main deficits or surplus in production over consumption. We would also like to create a guideline page on the website for anyone to be able to reuse the algorithm in order to analyse any generic dataset of another year on Germany's coal consumption and transport or even completely different flux of goods.

Ultimately, we will use that interactive representation of the data in order to try to draw historical insights into Germany's development ten years into its creation as a nation-state. By considering that representation through the prism of secondary literature, we hope to comparatively ascertain the way in which the macroeconomic aspects of German unification preceded its the political unification.

Already done

• Definition of data format ✓
• Bibliography and Research on historical context ✓
• Definition of extraction methodology on ✓
• Extraction done at 40% ✓
• Code the interactive maps of production and consumption centers ✓
• Code the static trade routes map ✓
• Code the dynamic trade routes representation ✓
• Automatisation of the conversion of html maps to png images ✓

Milestone 0 (9.11)

• Complete project plan and milestones on the wiki (>300 words)
• Debriefing on the project progress
• Preparation of midterm presentation

Milestone 1 (14.11)

• Create first version of the website to present maps
• Midterm presentation
• Discuss insight

Milestone 2 (18.11)

• Extraction done at 65%
• Motivation and description of the services (> 200 words)
• Update website main page with motivation and description of the services
• Add the color dimension to the interactive visualisation of production centers (mining basins)

Milestone 3 (25.11)

• Extraction done at 100%
• Run algorithm of interactive maps (consumption, production, transport hubs, etc.) on all the data set
• Update the website with full interactive maps
• Document the wiki with the detailed description of the extraction methods (> 500 words)
• Document the wiki with quantitative analysis of the performances of extraction (> 300 words)
• Create a page with detailed description of the extraction methods on the website and quantitative analysis of the performances of extraction

Milestone 4 (2.12)

• Add the color dimension the the dynamic simulation of the data set (mining basins)
• Test dynamic simulation with the full data set
• Check dynamic simulation for bugs
• Automatisation of the conversion of png frames to gif animation
• Document the wiki with historical introduction to the map (> 200 words)
• Create a page with historical introduction to the map on the website

Milestone 5 (9.12)

• Make dynamic simulation displayable on the website
• Enrich the wiki and the website with historical analysis of the subject
• Add guideline page on the website for anyone to be able to reuse the algorithm in order to analyse any generic dataset

Milestone 6 (14.12)

• Deliver Github repository
• Prepare final project presentation

Milestone 7 (19.12)

• Final project presentation

Map details

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  Berlin as one on the main consumption center.

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  The Ruhr, Germany's main industrial center.

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  Bremen and Bremerhafen, a small consumption center, but a huge transport hub.

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  The extremely precise scale system.

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  Colors legend.