This subdataverse contains original shapefiles relating to the Arabic-speaking Middle East and North Africa produced by researchers at the University of Oxford's Middle East Centre.

These shapefiles recover geospatial information from publicly-available maps produced by both governmental and non-governmental cartographers. The focus is on capturing historic features that predate the availability of satellite imagery and open-source spatial data. These include economic, political, and demographic features at varying scales, e.g., historic national borders, internal administrative boundaries, building locations, etc.

For more information on shapefile attributes, the georeferencing process, and how to cite the data, see: https://osf.io/nfeh4/.