French Historical GIS, 1790-2020. Administrative Units and Population

The ANR Communes project (2019-2026) has created France's first historical GIS (H-GIS) incorporating historical administrative boundaries, corresponding demographic data, and historical transport datasets. This paper focuses on the first of these three components, the reconstruction of historical communes. Using an `archaeological' approach to administrative boundaries based on archival and published sources, we created annual vector geometries for French communes between 1790 and 2020. This article describes how the database was created, explains how it can be accessed, and outlines some potential uses.