Seeking historical shapefiles of Europe in modern era

Question

Is there a source for historical shapefiles of Europe in the modern era, i.e. starting ca. 1400?

I know that "where can I find historic border data" questions were asked multiple times but I couldn't find an answer to my specific question.

Answer 1

You might georeferenece and digitize some old maps from here:

http://www.wildernis.eu/chart-room/

but don't expect too much accuracy.

Answer 2

Searching for a similar set, I stumbled across this resource:

https://github.com/interactivethings/historical-world-atlas

However there's no projection info or .prj files, so it doesnt seem usable?

Answer 3

Unfortunately, ThinkQuest has been discontinued as of 1st July 2013. However, their data has been archived, most of which should be available from the ThinkQuest Library.

Answer 4

Direct link to the ThinkQuest downloads mentioned in other answers: http://web.archive.org/web/20080328104539/http://library.thinkquest.org:80/C006628/download.html

Answer 5

I recently found this website, though unfortunately the data is not free. It is also available from Stanford University, on the off-chance you're in some way affiliated with them or know someone who is. https://www.euratlas.net/shop/maps_gis/gis_1600.html

Answer 6

These replication files from Carter, Ying, and Abramson (APSR, 2022) have great data on historical European borders: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/5O3EOW