Explanations of the information shown on the search details page is provided here.
The Time Series records are directly linked to extensive Source Notes, and commentaries in Chinese. (note: Time Series records span more that one year of time, ie. they do not have the same begin year and end year values.)
The CHGIS Search Engine was written by Lex Berman in PHP scripting language, connecting to a MYSQL database. The data model for the search engine is a customized version of the basic CHGIS relational database model, which was developed by Lex Berman and Man Zhimin, with the assistance of Lawrence Crissman and Bill Hays. Guide maps are produced on-the-fly using the University of Minnesota Mapserver.