Historical dataset of administrative units for Galicia 1857–1910

Frequent changes in the administrative division of Galicia (in modern Ukraine and Poland), a 78,500 km2 former crown land of the Austrian monarchy, have made it difficult, if not impossible, to map socioeconomic data and spatial analyses for the entire region. However, the development of cartography and organisation of censuses since the mid-19th century provide an excellent basis for the modern use of historical data and its integration through geographic information systems (GIS). We vectorised the boundaries of 5,944 cadastral communes from 413 map sheets on a scale of 1:28,800 from 1861 to 1864. Geometric boundaries are accompanied by their names according to census and cartographic sources. Cadastral communes can be combined into higher-level units, e.g., circles, districts, based on censuses from 1857 to 1910. 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 six time periods between the 1857 and 1910. Altogether, 16 layers are available. The data can be useful for socioeconomic reconstructions such as demographic, ownership, and genealogical analyses and for studying land use changes.