Historical Network of Authorities
The visual application “Historical network of authorities” allows you to explore over 170 years of history of the Swiss authorities.
The visual application “Historical network of authorities” allows you to explore over 170 years of history of the Swiss authorities.
The horizontal axis of the visualisation indicates when an authority was established. The width of the rectangle representing it shows how long it has existed. An algorithm organises the authorities on the vertical axis so that, as far as possible, they do not overlap, but also so that authorities which are linked are close to each other.
There are two types of link: the blue ones connect successors to their predecessors, while the violet ones indicate hierarchical relationships. The violet arrows lead from an authority to the one of which it is part.
How to use the app
Click on an institution to highlight all the others that are linked to it (ancestors, successors and hierarchically linked institutions). Double click to reveal all those in its network of links. To begin navigating the network select either the “departments” view (default) or the “all authorities” view (this will take longer to load). You can also highlight an authority directly by searching for its name.
Data source
The data used by the application are metadata from the fonds of the Federal Archives. These contain information on how the documents were transmitted, including the authorities that create the documents and deliver them to the Federal Archives. The information comprises the name of the authority, the length of its existence, its administrative mission, and its predecessor and successor.
Further information
- The complete HTML, CSS and JavaScript code of the application can be found in our GitHub repository. Please feel free to create your own fork!
- The bhgraph.json file in this GitHub repository contains the extracted metadata on the authorities from the fonds of the Federal Archives in JSON format.