19世紀前半以降、欧米系の貿易商人の活動がアジア海域に広がると、商業情報の重要な媒体として新聞が発達した。アジアの沿海で欧米人のまとまったコミュニティがある都市では、この種の欧文系の新聞がほぼ定期的に刊行されていた。19世紀を通じて、この新聞の読者層の大半が貿易商人であったため、紙面のほとんどが経済情報、なかんずく貿易関係の情報で占められていた。特に船舶の情報は紙面の中で一番の重きを置かれていた。帆船が主流であった1860年代までは、遠く離れた本国を出港した船舶の到着を告げる情報は、最重要のビジネス情報として紙面のトップに掲載された。蒸気船が急速に普及しはじめた1870年代以降では、定期航路が相次いで開設され、新聞の広告のほとんどが海運会社のそれで埋め尽くされた他、詳細な運航時刻表まで掲載されている。19世紀を通じて船舶の運航状況を正確に知ることは、国際貿易業務にとって現在よりもはるかに重要であった。新聞誌上の船舶情報は、通関記録に基づく貿易統計ではないため詳細な輸出入品目表を欠く。しかし、船舶一隻一隻の動きを一日単位で追うことができるため、国際物流構造の質的・量的な変化をより動的な形で理解できる、という利点がある。また、新聞の創刊はアジアの各地で貿易統計よりも早く、概ね1850年前後まで遡ることができるため、貿易統計が作成される以前のアジア海域の貿易の姿を捉える上で貴重な情報源となっている。さらに、香港は自由貿易港として19世紀を通じて通関記録がないが、船舶情報については詳細に知ることができる。このように船舶情報は貿易統計とは独立した貴重な貿易史料として価値を有する。
　アジア各地の貿易港で刊行された新聞は、欧文系だけでみても同時期に複数紙が刊行されている。香港を例にとると、メジャー紙だけでもHong Kong Daily Press（1864年創刊）、China Mail (1866)、Hong Kong Telegraph (1881)、Hong Kong Weekly Press (1895)、Hong Kong Sunday Herald (1929)などが挙げられる。また19世紀末になると中国人向けに華字新聞も多数発刊されるようになった。いずれの紙面にも必ず船舶情報が欠かさず掲載されている。船舶情報の情報源となる典拠の豊富さ多様さもまた同情報の魅力である。

From the mid-nineteenth century when Western trade merchants began expanding into Asia, newspapers developed as an important medium of commercial information. Asian coastal cities with a sizable community of Westerners had almost regularly published newspapers in European languages. Since the majority of readers of these newspapers were trade merchants throughout the nineteenth century, most of the pages were filled with economic information, in particular information related to trade. The most important one was information about shipping. Until the 1860s when the sailboats were the mainstream, the arrival of a ship which left the port in the far away mother country was the top news in the newspaper: it was the most important business information. From the 1870s when steamboats started to spread rapidly, regular shipping routes were developed one after another and the shipping companies took up most of the advertisement space. The newspapers also carried detailed timetables. Accurate shipping information throughout the nineteenth century was far more important in the international trade business than today.
This shipping information does not contain detailed lists of imports/exports since these are not trade statistics based on customs records. However, they allow us to trace each ship’s daily movements, helping us comprehend qualitative and quantitative changes in the international distribution structure in a dynamic manner. Further, since many of the newspapers in Asia were established as early as 1850, earlier than trade statistics, they constitute a valuable source of information in capturing the overview of sea trade in Asia before trade statistics were complied. In particular, while Hong Kong, a free trading port, did not have any customs records throughout the nineteenth century, we have a lot of detailed shipping information. Thus, shipping information is a valuable material on the history of trade, which is separate from trade statistics.
In terms of newspapers established in various trading ports in Asia, it was not rare that multiple papers in European languages were in circulation at the same time. In the case of Hong Kong, there was the Hong Kong Daily Press (established in 1864), China Mail (1866), Hong Kong Telegraph (1881), Hong Kong Weekly Press (1895), and Hong Kong Sunday Herald (1929) among others. By the end of the nineteenth century, many newspapers in Chinese were established for Chinese readers. All these papers carried shipping information without fail. Another attraction of shipping information is the richness and the variety of sources.

The database made available here contains shipping information for Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore for four years: 1851, 1873, 1903, and 1913.
The data for 1851 represent the immediate aftermath of the opening of ports in China and since there were no trade statistics compiled in 1851, they represent valuable data that outline the trends in sea trade in Asia when the ports were opened. They allow us to learn about the infancy in Chinese trade. The data for 1873 serve as the basis for estimating the impacts of two major developments in international shipping in Asia, namely the opening of Suez Canal in 1869 and the spread of steamboats from the 1870s. Furthermore, the data allow us to capture Asian trade before it was influence by the international crash in the value of silver and industrialization in Japan and India. The data for 1903 covers the period between the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, which in particular reflected the rise of Japan in East Asia. Data will highlight the enhanced presence of Japanese registered ships and Japanese trading companies such as Mitsui & Co. This was the period in which railway construction on the Chinese continent gathered pace and ports such as Dalian and Tsingtao, which are still leading ports in the Far East today, were built. The data for 1913, just before the outbreak of World War I, represents the last year of the “long nineteenth century.”

Sources of data for each port and each year are as follows:
Shanghai: from North China Herald (weekly) for 1851, 1873, 1903, and 1913.
Hong Kong: from China Mail (weekly) for 1866, Hong Kong Daily Press (daily) for 1873, and China Mail (daily) for 1903 and 1913.
Singapore: from Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertisement (weekly) for 1851, Singapore Times Overland
Journal (bi-weekly) for 1873, and Straits Times (daily) for 1903 and 1913.