Battle Location Dataset

While quantitative military analysis literature frequently models the relationship between geographical features -- particularly distance and terrain -- and the origins, conduct and outcome of war, few attempts have been made to correct several problematic conventions in how these features are studied. Such variables are typically measured as binary indicators of the dominant type of terrain in the conflict's host state, subjective ordinal variables, and linear distances between national borders or capital cities. Moreover, much of this literature has attempted to examine the effects of terrain at the macro level, where the unit of analysis might be an entire war, militarized interstate dispute, or a monadic or dyadic country-year. As a result, geography is often treated as time- and space-invariant within an individual case. This dataset represents an effort to address some of these problems. It is a geocoded version of the U.S. Army's CBD90 (HERO) battle-level dataset. It includes geographical coordinates for each battlefield, continuous measures of terrain (ruggedness/elevation/land cover) and deployment distance.