Digital Mapping of Historical Regions of Ukraine, DMHRU, is a system of vector maps of historical regions is purported to illustrate the survey data Region, Nation and Beyond on the background of historical formations dated from X till XX centuries. The survey data came from the mass national survey of the 6000 adults in Ukraine, conducted in February-March 2013 by the method of face-to-face interview. The survey included about 200 questions united in batteries: national identity, historical events and personas, historical memory and commemoration, language in use and language policy, religion, economic situation’s evaluation and individual economic attitudes, interpersonal trust at work and political conflict of 2013-2015.

DMHRU represents five historical formations which are: XI century period of Kievan Rus; second that of XIII Kievan Rus of the period on the edge of the Tatars’ invasion; third is of the 1700 y. that is the Cossack state of the period of Khmelnyts’ky’s wars, forth is the XIX century period of split between the Russia empire and Austrian-Hungarian empire; five is the between the two World wars period – division by Soviet Ukraine, Second Polish Republic, Czechoslovak republic and Romania. The borders of maps are drawn by historian Bohdan Solchanyk and cartographer Ivan Shegda at the level of rayons, the smallest administrative division available in cartography.

The DMHRU allows to

• visualize the variables from the research project Regions, Nations and Beyond of 2013 and 2015 years using the regional cuts: by 72 rayons, 25 oblasts, 4 macroregions and five types of cuts that corresponds to five historical periods;
• see statistics of the two kinds: averages (calculated by the formula of the weight-average (средневзвешенная) and percentage;;
• put two types of regions over each other, i.e., larger historical regions or oblasts over smaller administrative regions or oblasts;
• visualize two variables of one year of study at once using the same regional cuts for both;
• visualize one variable of 2013 and 2015 years of study using the same regional cuts for both;
• see the scale of changes in-between of 2013 and 2015 studies with the help of Difference tab;
• present the questions that were asked only in 2013 or in 2015 at one map with the help of Both tab;
• visualize two variables at once using smaller cut (rayons) for the first and larger cut (oblasts) for the second;
• choose the way of visualization of the second variable by hatch or semi-transparent color;
• see immediately the value of a variable altogether with the title of a region hovering over a region;
• export the Table of values for the selected regional cut to Excel spreadsheet;
• save a map with the opportunity to edit it in the image processing applications;
• zoom up a map to see more geographic details.

Limitations of the use

• The Maps are not the statistical evidence to test the hypotheses; it is only an instrument of an illustration. Testing of statistical significance of the differences and running regression models are necessary for proving the significance of the interregional differences.
• As the gradation of colours is associated with the intervals, formally defined, the values that are close to each other and are in the different intervals will be shown in different colours. That is why the conclusions should not be made solely basing on Maps. The test of statistical significance are required.
• Only the variables that show strong variation among the regions are feasible for producing spectacular illustration. If the variability between regions is small, the map visualization does not pay off.
• If the question has low frequency, it is impossible to obtain good illustration. For example, Russian nationality produce 1-2% in many oblasts so the visualization will be very pale.
• There is no sense in visualizing the same question asked in 2013 and 2015 with the help of Both tab, only with the help of Difference tab.
• In many cases small number of observations makes the visualization of the question at the level of rayons problematic. Thus, the visualization of averages (those questions that measured the intensity of the attitude in the scales from (1-3) to (1-11) – not marked by the "%" symbol) is more reliable than the visualization of the percentages (marked by the "%" symbol). In the case, if in the visualization of percentage some rayon pops up, one should check the tables of distributions. The number of observations will likely be too small because of large none-response rate. That is why popping up of rayons in the questions of complicated question (about the desirable status of a church, education, mass media language policy and so on) makes preliminary interpretations meaningless.
• Because of violations in the principle of randomization, comparison of changes in 2013-2015 should be done very carefully. If in the maps built within Difference tab some oblasts pop up and in the unexpected for regional pattern observed for the last 20 years manner, any interpretations could be erroneous. In a case if some oblasts pop up, one should better compare at the four macroregions level, historical level or select another question for comparison.