Shaping the Colonial Port cities: Trade Network and Spatial Structure in the Early modern period

Abstract. This paper presents a comprehensive research framework examining the interplay between colonial trade networks and the spatial form of port cities during the early modern era. Firstly, the study constructs a geographic database of nearly 300 colonial port cities, using intercity trade data from East India Company archives as network edges to analyze their structural and morphological evolution. Secondly, it processes historical maps of colonial ports through a fine-tuned multimodal large language model to extract and classify spatial morphological features, establishing a systematic typology of urban form patterns. Thirdly, the research develops regression models to reveal correlations between network status and morphological patterns. Preliminary findings highlight Batavia's dominant yet volatile role within the network and reveal a trend toward decentralization over the 18th century. The research contributes to both urban historical studies and digital humanities by offering a scalable, comparative approach to interpreting colonial port cities as spatial manifestations of global economic and political forces, while establishing empirical relationships between network status and urban form characteristics. It further provides a refined framework for contextualizing their cultural heritage significance within trans-colonial networks.