# Roads and cities of 18th century France

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a digitized 18th-century French road network dataset from the Cassini map, enabling interdisciplinary research on urban and historical development.

## Contribution

The paper presents a newly digitized national-level 18th-century French road network dataset using collaborative methods.

## Key findings

- The dataset captures the road network from the Cassini map, offering insights into historical urban systems.
- The collaborative digitization methodology is detailed for potential replication in similar projects.
- The dataset supports interdisciplinary research across history, geography, and network science.

## 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 18th 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.