Abstract
The geospatial dataset presented in this manuscript, represents elements of the historical, natural, political and cultural environment of Cyprus, as it was recorded by British officials during the early years (1878-1883) of their administration on the island. The data were derived from Horatio Herbert Kitchener's map of Cyprus, published in 1885 in 15 sheets, at a scale of 1:63 360 (1 inch to 1 mile), which is considered a milestone in the cartography of the island. The geospatial layers were extracted my manual on-screen digitization of the geographic features depicted on the georeferenced seamless mosaic created by the individual sheets (Chalkias et al., 2023). The database consists of the following vector layers: (a) road network, (b) hydrographic network, (c) administration boundaries as well as land cover/use in raster format and covers the entire area of the island (9 247 km(2)). In addition, the locations and the population attributes recorded in the census of 1881, have been added to the database as well. Historical maps and censuses are a valuable and the most common source of geospatial data used in historical research, when space and the spatial distribution of phenomena, are considered a critical parameter. However, among other, the availability of historical geospatial data, is recognized as a limitation to the further development of Historical GIS. Therefore, this dataset aims to contribute to this need.