Historical geospatial dataset of Cyprus from British administration maps of the 19th century.

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.