Database of historic ports and coastal sailing routes in England and Wales

This data paper presents a reconstruction of historical ports and coastal routes in England and Wales during the age of the sailing ship, ending at the beginning of the twentieth century. The dataset was created by an amalgamation of twenty different sources, including geographical data, primary sources and secondary literature. Ports found in historical documents were listed by year of appearance and georeferenced. Ports that appear in multiple sources were listed only once. Coastal routes between ports were drawn based on navigation charts and bathymetry data, distinguishing five categories with different characteristics. Visibility from the coast was deduced from elevation rasters and lighthouse locations. Subsequently both ports and coastal routes were checked using topological rules to ensure the connectivity of the network. The data is provided in shapefile format with all the attributes and can be analysed using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for different types of geographical and historical studies.