Abstract

We present the first database of historical local population for Italy. The historical Italian municipalities population dataset (ITPOP) will cover the population of the peninsula at constant boundaries from 1861 to 2011. This paper presents the results of the initial stage of the project, with municipal homogeneous population figures for all Italian municipalities between 1861 and 1921 – the so-called «Liberal age». The database embraces the scrutiny of thousands of municipal territorial variations creating homogenous units that allow for analyses that can be comparable through time. From a methodological perspective, this contribution represents a first step towards the adoption of a local perspective in the Italian economic history literature.