In this project, I created an interactive map that visualizes the global distribution of toponyms in a corpus of 2720 Indonesian short stories published between 2010 and 2019 in 53 Indonesian national and local periodicals. The map is intended to reveal common patterns of mental maps reproduced in Indonesian short stories and show the divergence of geographic and symbolic proximity in these mental maps. Besides, it can be used as a tool for exploring the representation of individual places around the world in Indonesian short stories.

How to use

Every pin on the map represents a place mentioned in the corpus. When clicking on a pin, a window appears that contains bibliographical information about all the short stories that mention the specific place represented by the pin. The pattern is as follows:

• Place name mentioned <number> times in <author of short story> (<date>), <title of short story>, <newspaper which published short story>.

Another essential feature of the map is the layer control in the top right corner . Under this icon, the way pins are displayed can be adjusted. So far, there are four options which can be combined:

1. Clusters: shows clusters of places that are geographically close to each other. The cluster will adjust according to the zoom level of the map.
2. All: plainly shows all places mentioned in the corpus represented by pins.
3. 10 and Above: only shows places that are mentioned in ten short stories and more also represented by pins.
4. Heatmap: shows the density of places on the map represented by a color spectrum.

Fullscreen