Georeferenced versions of 217 map sheets of the 19th-century Senate Atlas/Russian topographic maps 1:21 000 across Varsinais-Suomi and Uusimaa -regions in Southern Finland

This dataset contains raw and georeferenced versions of the 217 map sheets of the “Senate Atlas” (Senaatin kartasto in Finnish) that cover the Varsinais-Suomi and Uusimaa -regions in Southern Finland. 

The ”Senate Atlas” is an atlas of maps over Southern Finland that describes the land use, land cover and habitation across the region during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The atlas exists as two series of map sheets (“Senaatin kartat” -series of 414 map sheets and “venäläiset topografikartat 1:21 000” -series of 366 map sheets) that differ in their geographic extent and color palette (National Archives of Finland 2023). The map sheets included in this dataset follow the palette that roughly corresponds to other historic maps of similar age and scale in the Finnish context (the atlas of cadastral parish maps "Pitäjänkartasto", in particular). For example, arable fields are colored in yellow, forests in white, meadows and grasslands in green, and water in tones of blue, in these sheets. Certain exceptions to this apply, as some sheets (e.g. XI 20 Koski) were available only as versions colored according other palettes.

The sheets have been assembled and georeferenced for research purposes. For more information concerning the atlas and the two versions of sheets, see Strang (2013), National Archives of Finland (2023), and Arcanum Database Ltd (2023).

Disclaimer: No warranty of completeness of the information concerning the sheets or of the precision concerning their georeferencing can be guaranteed. Producing the contents of this dataset has been a longstanding project that has operated on volunteer resources and spanned many intermittent periods of progress and arrested development. The georeferenced sheets are best interpreted together with accurate spatial data of the present landscape and existing research literature on the contents and limitations of the maps (e.g., Lampinen 2015; 2018; 2025). In terms of ecology, the sheets are most suitable for landscape-scale and regional analyses of land use and land cover, and may prove poorly suited for site-specific analyses due to varying quality of the georeferencing.