A dataset of dynamical social map in ancient China: 618-1644

The data set of this article is related to the paper "Dynamical structure of social map in ancient China" (2022, Physica A, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2022.128209) . This article demonstrates the data of social relations between cities in ancient China, ranging from 618 AD to 1644 AD. The raw data of social associations between elites used to build social maps are extracted from the China Biographical Database. The raw data contain 14610 elites and 29673 social associations, which cover 366 cities in China. The dataset of this article is relevant both for social and natural scientists interested in the social and economic history of ancient China. The data can be used for further insights/analyses on the evolutionary pattern of geo-social architecture, and the geo-history from the viewpoint of social network. The dataset contains $3$ files: "Networks.xlsx", "Coordinates.xlsx", and "SocialMap.html". The "Networks.xlsx" has 3 columns, representing the source node (city), target node (city), and weight of a link between two nodes, respectively. The "Networks.xlsx" contains $9$ sheets, which are the data for different dynasties named by Early Tang, Late Tang, Early Northern-Song, Late Northern-Song, Early Southern-Song, Late Southern-Song, Yuan, Early Ming, and Late Ming. Noticeably, the "Networks.xlsx" can be visualized by the network software of Gephi directly. The "Coordinates.xlsx" has 4 columns storing longitude and latitude for all cities that appeared in 9 networks. The first and second columns are English names and Chinese names of cities; the third and fourth columns are longitudes and latitudes of cities. The "SocialMap.html" provides a visualization platform, in which users could select and illustrate the evolution of social maps intuitively.