Historical Urban Population: 3700 BC - AD 2000

The Historical Urban Population, 3700 BC - AD 2000, originally developed by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, is the first spatially explicit global data set containing location and size of urban populations over the last 6,000 years. The data set was created by digitizing, transcribing, and geocoding historical, archaeological, and census-based urban population data. Each data point consists of a city name, latitude, longitude, year, population, and a reliability ranking to assess the geographic uncertainty of each data point. Despite spatial and temporal gaps, no other geocoded data set at this resolution exists. It can therefore be used to investigate long-term historical urbanization trends and patterns, evaluate the current era of urbanization, and build a richer record of urban population through history.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer undefined
Last Updated April 23, 2025, 20:16 (UTC)
Created April 23, 2025, 20:16 (UTC)
accessLevel public
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citation Reba, M. L., F. Reitsma, and K. C. Seto. 2018-05-04. Historical Urban Population: 3700 BC - AD 2000. Version 1.00. Palisades, NY. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). https://doi.org/10.7927/H4ZG6QBX. https://doi.org/10.7927/H4ZG6QBX.
creator Reba, M. L., F. Reitsma, and K. C. Seto
graphic-preview-description Maps Download Page
graphic-preview-file https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/set/urbanspatial-hist-urban-pop-3700bc-ad2000/maps
harvest_object_id a6b94270-4c27-4486-ae70-dd6960dbcac2
harvest_source_id b37e5849-07d2-41cd-8bb6-c6e83fc98f2d
harvest_source_title DNG Legacy Data
identifier C1527281913-SEDAC
issued 2018-05-04
landingPage https://doi.org/10.7927/H4ZG6QBX
language {en-US}
metadata_type geospatial
modified 2018-05-04
programCode {026:001}
publisher SEDAC
references {https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.34}
release-place Palisades, NY
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 539888fdecfeeb43acfc539d08581c5fc47fa018a012f00afb9cdc361fe0fc08
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial -180.0 -60.0 180.0 85.0
temporal 1700-01-01T00:00:00Z/2000-12-31T00:00:00Z
theme {USPAT,geospatial}