Historical dataset of administrative units with social-economic attributes for Austrian Silesia 1837 – 1910

We present a set of historical data consisting of administrative unit boundaries and exemplary socio-economic attributes for Austrian Silesia, an historical region located in modern Czechia and Poland. The dataset covers nearly 700 administrative unit boundaries on the level of cadastral or political communes and their subparts and was acquired through manual a vectorisation of historical maps (1:28,800) from the period 1837–1841. The local-level units can be easily joined into higher-level divisions such as court or political districts for the period 1837–1910. The data can then be combined with statistical data collected approximately every 10 years for a similar period.The present dataset provides many possibilities for joining a wide range of historical statistical data to better understand various demographic and economic processes based on advanced analyses, e.g., by using GIS. The dataset is an open, vector SHP file that is easy to use in most GIS software and easily convertible to other formats. The shared layers are available on the level of communes and their parts and for districts for seven time periods between the 1830s and 1910. Altogether, 21 layers are available. In the attached dataset, 4 name-related, 4 house-related, 42 demographic-related, 9 farm animal-related and 5 land use-related attributes were selected.