WHG::Datasets

These datasets flagged as public in WHG include a growing set of historical contributions, as well as several in a non-historical "core." They can be browsed on their linked pages, explored in context of the entire repository on the Search page, and accessed programmatically with our Index and Database APIs.

All such public data are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, requirements of which appear alongside download links on all Dataset and Collection pages H = Historical; C = Core (non-historical)

title	rows	description	modified	contributor	type
African Ports, 1887	305	305 settlements and ports on the West African coast	2024-03-01	whgadmin	H
An Historical Atlas of Central Asia	759	This dataset comprises 759 place records, digitized in 2018 from 15 of the 48 maps in this scholarly atlas. The maps' extensive sources, detailed in the Preface and Notes, include "...all reliable gen...moreeral surveys of Central Asian history, and scholarly works on specific historical topics that contain significant historico-geographical information, with or without maps." The data comprises not only settlements, but historical cultural and political regions, spatial extents for which are indeterminate and indicated by dashed boundaries around their labels on the map plates. less	2022-11-22	whgadmin	H
Archaeological Sites of the Mosul Dam Reservoir Survey	149	This dataset contains places from a map of archeological sites compiled from a general survey of the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage (SOAH) in 1980 for the Mosul Dam salvage proj...moreect. Between 1981 and 1988 the Mosul Dam was built on the River Tigris resulting in upstream flooding and the creation of the Mosul Reservoir. Starting in 1981, the SOAH as well as local and foreign archeologists, began the work of excavating sites that would be affected by the construction of the dam. Over the period of six years, more than 60 sites were excavated. Most sites on the map had been previously unknown prior to the 1980 survey. less	2023-10-30	als512	H
Atlas of Mutual Heritage	1322	The Atlas of Mutual Heritage is a growing database containing information about, and images of, the charter areas of the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and WIC (Dutch West India Company).	2024-04-09	rjstapel	H
Buddhist monasteries of the Western Ghats	55	Early Historic rock-cut Buddhist monasteries of the Western Ghats	2024-03-21	dr.gethin.rees@gmail.com	H
Burkina Faso Settlements	10939	Burkina Faso Settlements as compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Burkina Faso publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. The settlemen...morets dataset contains the location of cities, towns and villages in Burkina Faso. Data was transferred to LP-TSV format and cleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2023-12-08	justinpiel	H
Central African Republic Settlements	7419	Central African Republic Settlements as compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. The dataset sho...morews the villages and towns of Central African Republic. Data was transferred to LP-TSV format and cleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2023-12-08	justinpiel	H
Ch'ang Ch'un's Travels	50	The travels of Taoist Monk Ch'ang Ch'un to the court of Chingkis Khan, translated by E. Bretschneider in 1888. Ch'ang Ch'un was accompanied by his disciple, Li Chi Ch'ang, who composed most of the nar...morerative. It is his detailed notes which describe the geography and culture that they encountered on the journey. less	2024-01-17	louisematthews	H
Chad Settlements	16963	Chad Settlements as compiled by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. The dataset shows village locations...more in Chad. Data was transferred to LP-TSV format and cleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-01-04	justinpiel	H
Chinese Counties, 1911	1985	The China Historical GIS (CHGIS) project has produced a comprehensive series of datasets related to the administrative geography of Chinese History. This dataset contains 1,985 counties for the year 1...more911. less	2023-11-05	whgadmin	H
Chinese Prefectures, 1911	381	The China Historical GIS (CHGIS) project has produced a comprehensive series of datasets related to the administrative geography of Chinese History. This dataset contains 381 prefectures for the year ...more1911. less	2023-09-18	whgadmin	H
Chinese Provinces, 1911	27	The China Historical GIS (CHGIS) project has produced a comprehensive series of datasets related to the administrative geography of Chinese History. This dataset contains 27 provinces for the year 191...more1. less	2023-04-14	whgadmin	H
Chinese Towns, 1911	40017	The China Historical GIS (CHGIS) project has produced a comprehensive series of datasets related to the administrative geography of Chinese History. This dataset contains 1,985 counties. This dataset ...morecontains 40,017 towns for the year 1911. less	2023-05-11	whgadmin	H
Curaçao Historical Administrative Areas	29	Spatiotemporal GIS layer of administrative areas (quarters; divisions; districts; urban neighbourhoods) in the island of Curaçao under Dutch, post-WIC control (1792-1954).	2023-09-04	rjstapel	H
Cyprus Settlements	1376	Collection of 1,376 places from the Cypriot settlement dataset created as part of the project ‘EIDOS of a City: simulating the collapse and resilience of ancient Eastern Mediterranean urban environmen...morets via agent-based modelling.’ The Cypriot settlement dataset is the first large-scale, publicly available dataset of settlements in Cyprus that includes broad temporal information. The temporal coverage is from 11000 BCE to 1878 CE, from the Cypriot Late Epipalaeolithic to the Cypriot Ottoman period. This temporal information aims to help in the understanding of settlement persistence. The original dataset contains information about periods of occupation and occupation time spans not included in this platform. The temporal information related to each place in this platform represents the earliest and latest known dates of occupation. Katherine A. Crawford is responsible for the data entry and management of the Cypriot settlement dataset. Marc-Antoine Vella contributed a portion of the settlements. less	2024-03-20	als512	H
Côte d'Ivoire Settlements	8367	Côte d'Ivoire Settlements as compiled by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV for...moremat and cleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-03-25	justinpiel	H
David Christian's Inner Asia	1	Digitized from Christian, David. “Inner Eurasia as a Unit of World History.” Journal of World History, vol. 5, no. 2, 1994, pp. 173–211.	2023-11-06	whgadmin	H
Eugène Andriveau-Goujon 1880 Africa Map	1322	The following is a list of settlements in Eugène Andriveau-Goujon's 1880 map “Carte générale de l’Afrique, d’après les dernières découvertes.” The map was georeferenced and point data was added for se...morettlements through GIS. Settlement data reflects only the mainland African continent, as the spatial transformations necessary for accuracy in the mainland led to some distortion of Madagascar, outlying areas, islands, etc. less	2024-03-20	justinpiel	H
Eurasia UNESCO World Heritage Sites	23	These sites span 6 countries of Northern and Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, and China. These sites are landmarks or areas that have been designated...more by UNESCO to have "cultural and natural heritage" which is considered "of outstanding value to humanity." Sites vary from natural systems such as lakes and plateaus to manmade structures such as ancient towns and mausoleums. less	2024-02-14	louisematthews	H
Euratlas Cities	3584	3584 cities with temporally scoped names from the Euratlas Periodis Historical Atlas and Gazatteer. Polities will be added as a separate dataset.	2023-08-29	whgadmin	H
Exploring Slave Trade in Asia	474	The Exploring Slave Trade in Asia Dataset presents 474 records with some geographic coordinates. Each entry provides the title, name variants, start year, type, aat code, and a description field which...more contains extra information including citations. less	2024-03-05	MAB981	H
Gazetteer of Stone Quarries in the Roman World	781	The Stone Quarries Database was compiled by Ben Russell as part of his research project on Sculpted Stone and the Roman Economy. The database includes all those quarries at which activity in the Roman...more period is proven or suspected. Creators of the database noted that dating these quarries to specific periods within the Roman era is usually very difficult and so has been largely avoided. The uploaded dataset uses the more general period of Imperial Rome (27BC - 476 AD) unless otherwise specially noted. Some sites may have been used prior to this period. The full dataset is available from the the Oxford Roman Economy Project. less	2024-03-31	als512	H
Ghana Settlements	10978	Ghana Settlements as compiled by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV format and ...morecleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-02-23	justinpiel	H
HGIS de las Indias (lugares)	13258	The lugares (settlements) in the Historical-Geographic Information System (HGIS) of the Indies (1701-1808), a project of the University of Graz, funded with the support of the Fund for Scientific Inve...morestigations of the Republic of Austria (FWF) between 2015 and 2017. The general purpose of HGIS de las Indias is to create a visualization of the historical geography for the Bourbon Spanish America through time, to create a solid systematics of the administrative-territorial structure as an interface for associated projects, as well as to promote geographic methods and digital tools in Hispano-Americanist historiography. less	2023-02-01	WStangl	H
HGIS de las Indias territorios	892	The administrative territorios in the Historical-Geographic Information System (HGIS) of the Indies (1701-1808), a project of the University of Graz, funded with the support of the Fund for Scientific...more Investigations of the Republic of Austria (FWF) between 2015 and 2017. The general purpose of HGIS de las Indias is to create a visualization of the historical geography for the Bourbon Spanish America through time, to create a solid systematics of the administrative-territorial structure as an interface for associated projects, as well as to promote geographic methods and digital tools in Hispano-Americanist historiography. less	2023-02-02	WStangl	H
Heritage Gazetteer of Libya	1349	The aim of the Heritage Gazetteer of Libya is to record, and to provide with Unique Identifiers, locations and monuments within modern Libya which are of significance to the history of the area up to ...more1950. It is based on the work of members of the Society for Libyan Studies. less	2024-01-12	nkmwicz	H
Historical Conflict Event Dataset	6951	The Historical Conflict Event Dataset presents 6,951 battlefields with geographic coordinates and dates, ranging from 1468 BCE to 2003 CE. Each entry provides the name, time, location and a short desc...moreription for sites of historical battles. The dataset was converted from an XML file into the LPF format. less	2024-01-18	whgadmin	H
IHO-IOC GEBCO Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names	4727	General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans(GEBCO) provides publicly available bathymetry data sets for the world’s oceans. The GEBCO Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN) maintains and makes av...moreailable a digital gazetteer of the names, generic feature type and geographic position of features on the seafloor. GEBCO operates under the joint auspices of the International Hydrographic Organization(IHO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) (of UNESCO). less	2023-07-02	als512	H
Indigenous Place Names in Florida	100	Place names from "A provisional gazetteer of Florida place-names of Indian derivation, either obsolescent or retained, together with others of recent application" edited by Mark F. Boyd, Tallahassee, ...more1956. Many of the place names stem from Creek and Hitchiti languages. less	2023-09-04	als512	H
Indigenous Place Names of Western PA	13	A collection of Indigenous place names of Western PA, originating from various local tribes. These Indigenous names are pulled from a collection of place names from George P. Donehoo's book A History ...moreof the Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania. Only village names have been pulled, not rivers or lakes. Citation: Donehoo, George P. A History of the Indian Villages and Place Names in Pennsylvania . Wennawoods Publishing. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. 1998. less	2023-10-06	audrey.evelyn	H
Indigenous Place Names of the Yukon	99	Selected indigenous place names from Gazetteer of Yukon created by the Yukon Geographical Place Names Program. The dataset includes names from Yukon First Nations people including: Kaska, Tlingit, Tag...moreish, Southern Tutchone, Northern Tutchone, Upper Tanana, Gwich'in, and Hän. less	2024-02-15	als512	H
KIT gazetteer Dutch Antilles	1227	Gazetteer developed by the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Royal Tropical Institute) in the Netherlands, in order to allow users to produce geographical queries on the KITs Dutch Colonial Maps Co...morellection. less	2022-11-30	rjstapel	H
KIT gazetteer Surinam	2146	Gazetteer developed by the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Royal Tropical Institute) in the Netherlands, in order to allow users to produce geographical queries on the KITs Dutch Colonial Maps Co...morellection. This collection is currently hosted by the Leiden University Library (https://digitalcollections.universiteitleiden.nl/view/collection/kitmaps). less	2023-02-26	rjstapel	H
List of Russian towns, late 14c	282	So called “List of Russian Towns, Distant and Hither" survived in 26 copies, and the oldest copy was preserved in the Commission Scroll of the Novgorod First Chronicle	2023-03-20	npkfrolov	H
Mali Settlements	18029	Mali Settlements as compiled by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV format and c...moreleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-02-09	justinpiel	H
Niger Settlements	32829	Niger Settlements as compiled by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV format and ...morecleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-01-27	justinpiel	H
Nomad's test	21	a test, just a test of some old Dutch stuff	2023-12-27	nomad	H
Old World Trade	4117	Place records drawn from "...geo/chrono-referenced data on land, river and maritime trade routes of Eurasia and Africa during the period 4,000 BCE - circa 1820 CE." Trade routes to be added in another...more dataset. less	2023-10-24	whgadmin	H
Place Names from "The Road of Furs" in Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads"	66	Place Names from Chapter 6, "The Road of Furs" in Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads." This chapter chronicles the rise of the fur trade on the Silk Roads and how it contributed to continued expansion ...morein every direction. There is also special attention to the connection between the spread of Islam and the spread of trade routes, especially for furs. The place names in this chapter include many rivers and seas and the settlements that began popping up alongside them. Additionally, peoples as diverse as the Ghuzz, Pecheneges, and Khazars are discussed in this chapter. less	2024-04-12	louisematthews	H
Place Names from "The Road to Concord" from Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads"	93	Gazetteer of Place Names from chapter 5, "The Road to Concord" from Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads." The place names in this chapter reflect the growing development of Islam in the Middle East and ...moreits expansion into Central Asia. Places of both success and failure are examined, with special attention to the city of Baghdad as a high point for the Islamic world. The growing expansion and connection of the empire is demonstrated in this chapter through places as far apart as Scandinavia and the Iberian peninsula. less	2024-04-12	louisematthews	H
Place Names from "The Road to Revolution" in Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads"	49	Gazetteer of Place Names from Chapter 4, "The Road to Revolution" in Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads." This chapter chronicles the rise of Islam and how it affected the surrounding regions. Frankopa...moren describes the efforts of the Persian Empire and various campaigns in areas such as Ctesiphon and Arabia before describing the rise of Muhammad and Islam in Medina. less	2024-04-08	louisematthews	H
Place Names from "The Road to a Christian East" in Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads"	103	Gazetteer of Place Names from Chapter 3, "The Road to a Christian East" in Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Roads." Christianity had solidified itself in Rome, but its roots in Asia still held deep. At thi...mores point, the Roman Empire was shrinking, and this chapter's place names reflect the other forces that began encroaching, such as the Xiongnu and Alans. This chapter also highlights some of the earliest and largest Christian communities in Asia like Merv and Kashgar. Frankopan's message is to highlight the reach of Christianity in Asia occurring centuries before missionaries reached England or France. less	2024-04-08	louisematthews	H
Places related to the life of Koxinga	2	GeoNames geographical database covers all countries and contains over eleven million placenames that are available for download free of charge. This dataset contains places from GeoNames that were imp...moreortant to the life of Koxinga, a Ming loyalist general who resisted the Qing conquest of China in the 17th century. less	2023-03-17	als512	H
Pleiades (partial)	20365	Pleiades is a community-built gazetteer and graph of ancient places. It publishes authoritative information about ancient places and spaces, providing unique services for finding, displaying, and reus...moreing that information under open license. This is a subset of Pleiades data, including settlements, monuments, and physical geographic features less	2020-07-23	whgadmin	H
Poland districts in the 16th century	105	105 districts in 16c Poland	2024-03-31	tpanecki	H
Poland localities in the 16th Century	24498	Localities in the 16th-century Polish Kingdom. The data is a result of a project dating back to the 1960s: "Historical Atlas of Poland. Detailed maps of the 16th century", The subject of the study (pu...moreblished in volumes from 1966 to 2021) are Polish lands in the second half of the 16th century. Each volume consists of two parts. The first includes a detailed main map (scale 1:250,000) showing settlement, relief, afforestation, parish network, state, and church administrative divisions, and roads, as well as overview maps (scale 1:500,000) dedicated to selected issues and plans of chosen cities (scale of 1:10,000). The second part is commentaries containing an overview of the source base, methods of elaboration, and lists of localities (including, name variations, and non-localized settlements) and physiographic names. less	2024-03-31	tpanecki	H
Poland provinces in the 16th century	23	23 provinces	2024-03-31	tpanecki	H
Pre-Colonial African Subregions	34	Pre-Colonial African Subregions with descriptions.	2023-12-28	whgadmin	H
Sierra Leone Settlements	9560	Sierra Leone Settlements as compiled by UN OCHA West and Central Africa (ROWCA) on the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV format and cleaned. Duplicate names, however close togethe...morer, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-01-04	justinpiel	H
Somalia Settlements	11012	Somalia Settlements as compiled by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV format an...mored cleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-03-31	justinpiel	H
South Sudan Settlements	18878	South Sudan Settlements as compiled by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV forma...moret and cleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-01-05	justinpiel	H
Sq_ replacement names (US Board on Geographic Names)	643	In response to the Department of the Interior Secretarial Order 3404 this is the list of U.S. Board on Geographic Names approved official Sq_ replacement names. On November 19, 2021, Order 3404 declar...moreed "squaw" a derogatory term and implemented a procedure to remove the term from federal usage. less	2023-07-22	als512	H
Sudan Settlements	11989	Sudan Settlements as compiled by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV format and ...morecleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-04-08	justinpiel	H
São Tomé and Principé Settlements	247	São Tomé and Principé Settlements as compiled by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Regional Office for West and Central Africa (ROWCA) and publicly available o...moren the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV format and cleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2023-12-15	justinpiel	H
The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela	217	The journey of Rabbi Benjamin from Spain through the Middle East, as digitized by Marcus Nathan Adler. He kept up communications between Jewish communities in different countries, and they were establ...moreished in virtually every city of importance by the Middle Ages. Benjamin took considerable notes on geography and was likely trying to establish places of asylum, as well as taking note of economic interest in each area. less	2024-03-31	louisematthews	H
Theophanes Bulgaria Places	35	Places mentioned in conjunction with early Bulgars/Bulgaria by Theophanes Confessor in his Chronicle. Theophanes was an 8th/9th Century Byzantine Chronicler and Monk. This chronicle is one of the most...more important sources for knowledge about the early Bulgars. less	2023-12-17	justinpiel	H
Togo Settlements	3609	Togo Settlements as compiled by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) publicly available via the Humanitarian Data Exchange. Data transferred to LP-TSV format and c...moreleaned. Duplicate names, however close together, are distinct settlements according to the data. less	2024-03-29	justinpiel	H
Truhart Historical Dictionary of States Entities	7028	Geopolitical entities referenced in Peter Truhart's Historical Dictionary of States	2024-03-19	smithds	H
Turtle Island Decolonized: Mapping Indigenous Names across “North America”	271	This dataset is a reproduction of cartographical data from "Turtle Island Decolonized: Mapping Indigenous Names across 'North America'" with the permission of the Decolonial Atlas. The dataset contain...mores nearly 300 names, representing about 150 languages. less	2024-03-20	audrey.evelyn	H
Villages Depopulated During Arab-Israeli Conflicts	108	A list of villages depopulated by conflicts between Arab and Israeli powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. This dataset does not include any information following 7 October 2023.	2024-03-31	als512	H
Violence on Crete	61	This dataset records all the sites with archaeological or epigraphic evidence for violence on Crete or violence enacted by Cretans in the Archaic and Classical periods (c. 700-400 BCE). It derives fro...morem Jesse Obert's PhD dissertation, in which he quantifies and visualizes all the evidence and includes a full bibliography. See: Obert, Jesse. 2023. “Violence and Polis Formation on Crete in the Age of Hoplite Warfare, 700-400 BCE.” Doctoral Thesis, Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley. less	2024-03-31	jesobert	H
Voyage Around the Erythraean Sea	31	A collection of locations mentioned in the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea" itinerary written in the early first century by an unknown author believed to be a merchant or scholar.	2023-12-06	zzz	H
Zimonyi Volga Bulgars	26	Places mentioned in István Zimonyi's book The Origins of the Volga Bulgars. This book covers the origins of the Bulgars, from their first mentions in the context of Old Great Bulgaria, through the 10t...moreh Century along the Volga River. less	2023-12-17	justinpiel	H
D-PLACE	1428	D-PLACE (the Database of Places, Language, Culture, and Environment) contains cultural, linguistic, environmental and geographic information for over 1400 human ‘societies’. A ‘society’ in D-PLACE rep...moreresents a group of people in a particular locality, who often share a language and cultural identity. All cultural descriptions are tagged with the date to which they refer and with the ethnographic sources that provided the descriptions. The majority of the cultural descriptions in D-PLACE are based on ethnographic work carried out in the 19th and early-20th centuries (pre-1950). less	2023-01-20	whgadmin	C
DK Atlas of World History	10643	Data culled from the index and maps of DK Atlas of World History. Jeremy Black, Ed.. DK Publishing (2005)	2024-02-27	whgadmin	C

These dataset and place collections have been flagged "published" in WHG. Most are downloadable from their linked page. Public data contained therein are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.

id	type	title	count	created	creator
1	dataset	HGIS de las Indias	14150	2021-06-18	whgadmin
2	dataset	Dutch Global History	2329	2021-06-18	whgadmin
21	place	Hernán Cortés and the Conquest of the Aztec Empire	35	2022-04-26	grunewas
25	dataset	An Historical Gazetteer of Ukraine	3224	2022-05-01	whgadmin
50	place	The World of Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa), 1745-1797	57	2022-06-29	rmostern
96	place	BTS and the Globalization of Talent	9	2022-10-08	mwilliams@oaklandcatholic.org
101	place	The World of Koxinga	6	2022-10-10	caf
107	place	Voyage Around the Erythraean Sea	31	2022-11-05	zzz
116	dataset	Historical Atlas of Poland in the 16th century	24626	2023-01-26	whgadmin
133	place	Violence on Crete, c.700-400 BCE	61	2023-09-07	jesobert
172	dataset	Indigenous Place Names in North America	1126	2024-01-15	als512