Big Data, maquette 3D et patrimoine numérique comme instruments d’étude démographique et historique : l’exemple de l’enquête « Charleville »

Abstract

The demographic and historical database baptised ‘Charleville’ was created between 2007 and 2011. It was made possible by one of the more remarkable characteristics of the city of Charleville in the Ardennes department, where the history of its population is concerned. From the end of the seventeenth century up to the beginning of the twentieth, the municipal authorities carried out nominative, spatialized and annual censuses of the inhabitants. These censuses counted populations of around 66,000 inhabitants at a time. In the database, the census information has been coupled with that of parish registers which exist since the beginning of the seventeenth century, and civil registers of births marriages and deaths, available from 1792. In this way we can identify individuals whose name begins with the letter B (used as a sample), and follow them in the evolution of their families and households. The ‘Charleville’ database has recently been reconfigured by means of a massive data management tool (or big data) called ‘Demo-Hist’. This tool authorizes the identification and integration of documentary and spatial sources over time. It is interoperable by computer and allows for the exploitation of the Charleville data in a geographical information system (GIS). Using this GIS, it is now possible to reconstitute a 3D model of the city in 1836, and soon, making use of BIM technology (Building Information Model), it will be possible to offer an architectural and demographic composition of each block, plot and dwelling unit in the city, from its genesis to the present day, like a real GIS in 3D.

Keywords

• history
• geographical information system
• 3D database
• 3D digitisation
• demography
• archive heritage