The following is a master list of demographic, economic, and geographic datasets that are spatially-related and provide high fidelity historical information whilst being public access. Some are year specific, whilst others cover large timespans, or are generally applicable. Non-academic sources are listed in italics.
Where maintained in physical form by the Preservés des Confoederatio, and not otherwise digitally available, such mentions are made in bold.
- Historical city populations (Chandler, Modelski, geospatial):
- HYDE v3.2: ~10000BC-2015AD, at 1000-year intervals from ~10000BC-1AD, at 100-year intervals from 1AD to 1700AD, at 10-year intervals from 1700AD to 1950AD, and at 1-year intervals from 1950AD onwards. Note that you are probably looking for
baseline.zip.
HYDE 3.2 may be more reliable than HYDE 3.3, as it appears more consistent with regional-scale estimates, but this is not yet confirmed.
- HYDE v3.3: ~10000BC-2023AD, at 1000-year intervals from ~10000BC-1AD, at 100-year intervals from 1AD to 1700AD, at 10-year intervals from 1700AD to 1950AD, and at 1-year intervals from 1950AD onwards.
- Gapminder v8: ~1800-2024AD, with projections until 2100AD at country-resolution.
- MEIOU And Taxes: ~1350AD-1800AD, at 50-year intervals. Modelled largely per province, although raster cell images may be accessible via Python scripting.
- NWO (Victoria 2): 1946AD, 1992AD. Modelled per province, mostly overlapping with modern administrative bounds.
- Population Calculator by shape: 2025AD.
- Carrying Capacity by Biome/Climate.
- Carrying Capacity by Crop Type (Native).
Gini Index.
- Note: For pre-modern societies, it is better to use a centre-of-gravity model for calculating Gini coefficient.
- Wealth Gini, Ancient Near East (Neolithic to Bronze Age).
- Atlas Universal Aguílar: ~1936AD-1950AD. Retained in-person at the Preservés. Contains mainly horticultural and trade statistics.
- ArcGIS, USGS GGGSC Global Critical Minerals: 2021AD:
- EDGAR: The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (0,1 degree resolution; 1970-2023AD).
- Eoscala: Economic statistics, 10000BC-2023AD at 5-arcminute resolution.
- European Regional GDP: 1938AD-1950AD, EU (NUTS) at 1-year intervals:
- G-Econ: 1990-2005, at 5-year intervals.
- GHSL: Global Human Settlement Layer, 1970AD-~2030AD (projected), at 5-year intervals:
- NBER, International Comparison of Unemployment Rates: 1900AD-1950AD, at 1-year intervals:
- Maddison Project: ~<0AD-2024AD
- Rosés-Wolf database on regional GDP, EU (NUTS): 1900-2015AD.
- SEDAC (Socioeconomic Data): 1990-2024AD
- The Iron and Steel Industries of Europe: 1929-1938AD.
- USGS Global Mineralogical Deposits: 2024AD
- 8k Equirectangular Raster, 1683-2020AD, Intermittent Intervals:
- Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Volume II. Geographical and Statistical: 1908AD
- GEBCO/NOAA Undersea Feature Names Gazetteer:
- Großer Historischer Weltatlas, Erster-Dritter Teil: ~10000BC-1980AD. Internal Collection.
- Marine Protection Atlas (Bathymetric/Oceanographic):
- Navionics Bathymetric, Oceanographic and Shipping Map:
- Stielers Handatlas: 1891AD.
- TAVO (Tubinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients): ~4000BC-1980AD. Internal Collection.
- Times Survey Atlas: 1920AD.
- Times Survey Atlas: Mid-Century Edition: 1955-1959AD.
- Westermann Grosser Atlas zur Weltgeschichte: <10000BC-1962AD.
¶ Military Science and ORBATs.
For purposes of brevity, we focus here only on documents and methodologies aimed at extracting the ORBATs and global military footprints of the UN5 - the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom.
- Global footprint (best for US/UK/France)
- Overpass Turbo with query:
[out:json][timeout:10000];
// gather results
(
nwr["landuse"="military"]({{bbox}});
nwr["military"]({{bbox}});
);
// print results
out geom;
United States.
United Kingdom.
France.
- See OSM instructions. Note also that France loves to blur any military installations on Google Maps; Bing Maps holds their equivalents. Blurs are a surefire way to detect military or important security sites for France.
Russia.
China.
- GDP Geospatial ML (can be integrated with HYDE3.3 for lookback): Wu et al. 2024.