About DEMOPAST

Italian Historical Demographic Atlas

DEMOPAST is a digital atlas of Italian historical demography based on digitized census data from ISTAT (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica), starting from the first national census of 1881.

The Project

The primary goal of DEMOPAST is to provide consistent population data by sex and age classes across all Italian provinces over time. Census data has been digitized, classified, and harmonized to account for changing administrative boundaries.

Data Sources

All data comes from the official Italian national censuses published by ISTAT. The original census volumes have been digitized and the population tables extracted and classified.

GENPOP

DEMOPAST is part of the GENPOP research project.

Available Census Years

Year Provinces Notes
1881 69 First national census of unified Italy
1911 69
1921 71 Includes Venezia Giulia and Venezia Tridentina (post-WWI)
1931 89 Province boundaries redrawn

Team

  • Nicola Barban
  • Michail Raftakis
  • Lorenzo Lionello
  • Luciana Maselli
  • Riccardo Omenti

Contact

For questions about the data or the project, please contact the DEMOPAST team.