DATAVIVA: Colombian Historical Document Metadata with 25 Million Images

DATAVIVA is a web application from the General Archive of the Nation of Colombia providing remote access to over 25 million digital images of historical documents. The dataset includes metadata for archival records, books, and case files spanning more than 500 years of Colombian history. It is published via the Socrata platform and was last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in document creation using Fecha_inicial and Fecha_final columns.
• Classify documents by archival level or type using the Nivel_descripción and Acceso columns.
• Build a search index for historical documents using Título, Signatura/Codificación, and URL fields.
• Estimate the scale of digitization efforts by aggregating the Cantidad_imagenes column.

Strengths

• Contains metadata for over 25 million digital images of historical documents.
• Covers a temporal range of more than 500 years of Colombian history.
• Offers multiple export formats including CSV, JSON, XML, and RDF.

Limitations

• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, limiting suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Archivo General de la Nación (General Archive of the Nation of Colombia).

Collection Method

Digitization and cataloging of historical archives.

Time Range

Over 500 years, specific start and end dates are column-based (Fecha_inicial, Fecha_final).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-18 19:24:37; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Colombia.