DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15082828
title: Data from the project "Nationalutgåva av de äldre geometriska kartorna" (The Oldest Geometrical Maps 1630-1655)

description: The project for the oldest geometrical maps, which took place between 2001 and 2010, aimed to make the content of these maps accessible to both the scientific community and the public.

The large-scale maps were created during the period 1630-1655. The largest collection is held at the Swedish National Archives, within the Land Survey's archives. Additional maps are scattered across other public archives and private ownerships. The total number of map images is approximately 12,000.

The project involved a comprehensive inventory of the archives, leading to a significant number of new discoveries. The original maps were scanned by the National Archives' photo unit. Each map image was printed as a scaled copy on archival paper. Following this, all text on the maps was interpreted, transcribed, systematized, and registered within a dedicated database. Additionally, the content on the maps regarding farms and settlements were located and spatially registered as point objects within a GIS application.

The "National Edition of the Older Geometric Maps" project was undertaken on behalf of Vitterhetsakademiens kommitté för historiska kartor. Funding was provided by the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (principal investigator: Clas Tollin). The project collaborated with the Institute for Language and Folklore, the Swedish Land Survey, and the Swedish National Archives.
description: The database consists of several thematic files. The following subsets are included:

Original data extracted from the maps

Aggregated data at the settlement and farm levels

Map objects extracted and geocoded from the original maps using GIS

The datasets above will be described in more detail.

Place and personal names extracted from the map text:  The place names, nature names, property names, and personal names that appear in the maps have been excerpted by the Institute for Language and Folklore. The goal of the excerption has been to include all the different spelling variants of the names that occur. Very frequent and formulaic names (such as Norrgärdet and Östergården) have usually not been excerpted.

Place names are considered to be the names of farms, hamlets and villages, as well as the names of different types of administrative areas (e.g. parishes and hundreds). The names of churches are also counted in this category. The category of nature names consists of the names of different types of natural localities such as lakes, mountains and forests. The names of structures (e.g. mills and bridges) are also counted as nature names. Property names are the names of cultivated land of various types, such as arable fields, meadows and paddocks.

Besides the place names, the dataset also includes information about the corresponding hamlets, villages, and their geospatial data defined in TORA: Topographical register at the Swedish National Archives. 
description: This version is an improved edition of the complete database compiled during the research project.
description: The data is exported from a MySQL database (deprecated) and published in CSV format, using semicolons as delimiters (UTF-8 encoded).