A GIS dataset of urban construction land along the Silk Road in the Ming and Qing dynasties

Urban construction is a main form of human land use activities. It records the history of urban system evolution and reflects changes in the location, size, and form of a city. Historical data of urban construction land along the Silk Road provide data support for studying the evolutionary process of these cities, as well as for restoring longer-term construction land and other urban factors. In this paper, urban land refers to the scope of city-wall enclosure. Through the integration of multi-source data, the urban construction land along the Silk Road was restored, and a GIS dataset of urban construction land along the Silk Road in the Ming and Qing dynasties was established. The dataset allows searches by place name or time period for the changes of construction land in cities from 1368 to 1911.