Roads and cities of $18^{th}$ century France

TL;DR

This paper presents a digitized, detailed historical road network dataset of 18th-century France based on Cassini's maps, enabling diverse interdisciplinary research on urban and infrastructural evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, collaboratively digitized historical road network dataset for France, filling a gap in spatial data for 18th-century urban studies.

Findings

The dataset covers the entire French territory at the national level.

It enables interdisciplinary research across history, geography, and network science.

The digitization methodology is detailed and reproducible.

Abstract

The evolution of infrastructure networks such as roads and streets are of utmost importance to understand the evolution of urban systems. However, datasets describing these spatial objects are rare and sparse. The database presented here represents the road network at the french national level described in the historical map of Cassini in the $18^{th}$ century. The digitization of this historical map is based on a collaborative methodology that we describe in detail. This dataset can be used for a variety of interdisciplinary studies, covering multiple spatial resolutions and ranging from history, geography, urban economics to network science.