RAPS-China

The RAPS tool should help decision makers, planners and researchers to better understand China's regional diversity. The system includes a large database of regional (statistical) data at the province level. These data can be easily retrieved, sorted, filtered, and aggregated for various regional classifications (such as economic regions, or coastal and central provinces). Moreover, the data can be combined into specialized indices, such as a regional "Human Development Index," an "Economic Development Index" or an "Infrastructure Availability Index." Due to these modules, RAPS is primarily a research and planning tool.

However, because of its visualization modules RAPS can be used as an educational tool at the university and high-school level for teaching students about the spatial disparities in China's economic development, human and natural resources, environmental conditions, or infrastructure. In seminars and lectures RAPS can be used for quickly illustrating China's regional diversity, taking into account many different development dimensions. With its multiple data dimensions RAPS provides a unique resource for genuine inter-disciplinary learning.

Since the RAPS tool includes a large amount of regional data at the province level that are linked to mapping functions, the system is also an easy-to-use geographical information system on China. With a few clicks the users can produce thousands of thematic maps on China. These maps can be printed, saved or exported (in publication-level quality) into other applications and documents.