Ranking cities around the North Sea: demography, infrastructure and soil

The dataset covers the North Sea region (Great Britain, Netherlands, Belgium and part of France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany) and is made up of GIS vector-files consisting of three parts: 1. Population numbers of (approximately) 100 cities with the highest population, for reference years 1300, 1500, 1700, 1850, 1900, 1950, 1990 and 2015; 2. Primary infrastructures on water, land and rail for reference years 1500, 1900 and 2015; 3. Soil types for reference years 1500, 1900 and 2015. The data sets have been compiled on the basis of existing European datasets and literature, supplemented with further literature and data research. Together the datasets provide a more detailed insight into the urbanization process around the North Sea from 1300 to 2015. The datasets on soil and infrastructure should be considered as a first attempt (version 1) to map these data for the North Sea region for three different reference years.