North African Ethnolinguistic Boundaries and Transport Links from the Interwar Period

Shapefiles depict Arabophone and Berber-speaking areas, including nomadic and settled zones, from the 1920s–1930s. The dataset also includes main roads and operational railways, highlighting approximate tribal boundaries and regional transport links. It was authored by Nejjar, Sawsene and last updated in October 2025.

Use Cases

• Mapping historical linguistic zones based on described Arabophone and Berber-speaking areas.
• Analyzing the relationship between transport infrastructure and tribal boundaries mentioned in the description.
• Visualizing the spatial distribution of nomadic versus settled communities in the interwar era.
• Studying the evolution of regional connectivity using the included main roads and operational railways.

Strengths

• Focuses on a specific historical period (1920s–1930s).
• Integrates multiple data themes: language, ethnicity, and transportation.
• Data is in a geospatial format (shapefiles) suitable for mapping.

Limitations

• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection.

Provenance

Source

Nejjar, Sawsene

Time Range

1920s–1930s

Freshness

Last updated 2025-10-14 16:50:39; freshness should be verified.

Geography

North Africa