A new methodology for the construction of historical population grids: Spain in the late nineteenth century

This study presents a novel methodology for constructing a historical population grid that sheds light on the spatial distribution of the population in late-nineteenth-century Spain. The grid (ESGRID1887) is harmonised and compared with the population settlement patterns revealed by the most recent population grid produced by EUROSTAT (GEOSTAT2021). ESGRID1887 uses data from the Nomenclátor of Spain (1887) and cadastral records to distribute the population reported in the 1887 Spanish Census across 1 km 2 cells. Unlike analyses based on administrative evidence (municipalities), this fine-grained approach highlights the historical significance of dispersed settlement across large areas of the Atlantic, Cantabrian, and Mediterranean peripheries, as well as in several mountainous regions of the peninsula in 1887. Furthermore, the comparison reveals that although the populated area increased from 21.9% of the territory in 1887 to 26.4% in 2021, this modest expansion resulted from two opposing dynamics: urban sprawl and depopulation. One-third of the cells inhabited in 2021 were uninhabited in 1887, whereas one-third of those inhabited in 1887 are currently uninhabited. This evidence reveals an additional dimension of the long-term depopulation process affecting a substantial part of Spain and opens avenues for further research.