Lake Dataset Extracted from Qing Dynasty Historical Maps (Geometrically Corrected and Georeferenced)

The Lake Dataset Extracted from Qing Dynasty Historical Maps (Geometrically Corrected and Georeferenced) contains vectorized lake features derived from two representative 18th-century official maps of China—the Huang Yu Quan Lan Tu (Kangxi Edition) and the Nei Fu Yu Tu (Qianlong Edition). Both historical maps were geometrically corrected and georeferenced by aligning them with high-resolution contemporary basemaps to ensure spatial consistency with modern geographic coordinate systems.The dataset focuses on lake distributions in the southern Mongolian Plateau. After the rectification process, lake boundaries were manually vectorized, and related attribute information was extracted, including lake centroid coordinates, perimeters, and surface areas. This dataset enables comparative spatial analysis between historical and modern hydrographic features and supports the quantitative evaluation of cartographic accuracy in Qing-era maps.This dataset is intended for use in historical geographic information systems (Historical GIS), cartographic distortion analysis, environmental and geomorphological change monitoring, and digital humanities research. All data are provided in standard Shapefile format and projected using the Albers Equal-Area Projection, which is suitable for analyzing regional-scale spatial patterns and lake areas. The dataset is fully compatible with mainstream GIS software platforms.