The processions of folk religion in Taiwan carry the symbolic significance of protecting the land and people, driving away evil spirits, and praying for blessings. Translating literally to "Territory," the term keng (境) represents the scope of divine power. The processions create a link among many temples across multiple religious spheres, forming what we could call an "alliance territory (kaupuêkeng)," as well as defining the spatial scope of worship recognized by the community. Observing and analyzing the procession routes and the participating network of temples provides a valuable method of understanding the spatial and social concepts of traditional communities and folk beliefs. This deeper understanding also provides insight into how factions are formed and how communities construct relationships. This research attempts to conduct a geographical study of the development of regional folk religious organizations by developing a geographic information system (GIS) that records ordered lists of folk religious institutions visited during the procession and lists of march participants. In particular, the study focuses on analyzing the two renowned examples of the Koah-hiun (刈香) festivals in Tainan: processions in Saikang-a hiu (西港香) and Tho-sian-a hiu (土城香) after 1964. By quantifying the spatial information and network records of the temples' procession routes over time, the article examines evolution of the cooperation and competition among the temples' networks, as well as the development of the communities with a diachronic approach. The establishment of this informational platform is based on the "procession path" and "communal temple" as the basic units. According to the tables that record the procession routes and points of visit, published by the main organizers of the procession activities, the platform marks the main temples, the temples that the procession passes by, and the march-participating temples and their parade unit types on the map. Finally, the platform makes use of animation to present the order of each village temple node in the path and compares the changes in the paths or territories of different procession activities through overlapping routes. In terms of quantitative analysis of the temple network, the platform uses statistical methods to display the changes in "friendship" or "competition" between the village temples on the GIS platform. This assists researchers in observing trends that may have research significance through spatial visualization interfaces.
神遊香境：曾文溪下游遶境的村廟交陪網絡空間分析 = A Spatial and Social Network Analysis of Religious Processions in the Lower Reaches of Zengwen River
