# County-level environmental events in China, 1368–1911

Historical county-level data for China covering cold, drought, flood, and wind during 1368–1911. The released file is a complete panel of 2,269 geographic units, 544 years, and four categories, comprising 4,937,344 record rows; this is not a total event count. Source values are preserved. Province and prefecture labels follow the 1911 framework described in the documentation.

- Version: 2024-09-16
- release_id: 75e9f9a4-29cb-48b8-ac22-f15214f62989
- Rows: 4937344
- Observation unit: historical_county_year_event_category
- Temporal coverage: 1368–1911
- Spatial scope: China: historical county-level administrative units
- access_mode: public_anonymous
- allow_download: true
- allow_preview: true
- show_dictionary: true
- show_construction_papers: true

## License and terms

Cite the construction paper and the data source. Noncommercial use, modification, and redistribution are permitted. Contact the current maintainer for commercial use. No Creative Commons dataset license is asserted.

## Variables

| key | label | type / serialization | unit | missing / zero |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| source_row_index | Source technical index (zero-based) | integer |  |  |
| NAME_CH | County-level unit name (Chinese) | string |  |  |
| NAME_PY | County-level unit name (Pinyin) | string |  |  |
| LEV1_CH | Province-level name, 1911 (Chinese) | string |  |  |
| LEV1_PY | Province-level Pinyin (source value) | string |  |  |
| LEV2_CH | Prefecture-level name, 1911 (Chinese) | string |  |  |
| LEV2_PY | Prefecture-level Pinyin (source value) | string |  |  |
| X_COORD | Longitude | number / decimal_string |  | Original decimal text is preserved; the coordinate reference system is unspecified. |
| Y_COORD | Latitude | number / decimal_string |  | Original decimal text is preserved; the coordinate reference system is unspecified. |
| Year | Year | integer |  |  |
| Category | Environmental event category | string |  |  |
| Counts | Number of environmental records in CMDD | integer |  | The author confirms this is a record count; observed values in this file are 0 or 1. |
| Counts_V | Number of environmental records in CTTYMRC | integer |  | The author confirms this is a record count; observed values in this file are 0 or 1. |
| Parameter | Weighted frequency of environmental events | number / decimal_string |  | Zero means no recorded account or a weighted result of zero; it does not establish that an event did not occur. Original decimal text is preserved. |

## Construction papers

Cheng, K., Bensassi, S., Elliott, R. J. R., Strobl, E. (2024). Constructing a county-level environmental events dataset for China during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368–1911). Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 57(3), 123–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2024.2369234

## Verified citing papers

Up to ten verified direct dataset citations, merged and ranked by recorded Google Scholar counts; not a live or exhaustive ranking.

No verified citation records yet.

## API

- [Metadata and available schema](https://data4agent.top/api/v1/datasets/149b5e13-ea3d-4cc0-9fc4-710bc7ae5ca0?release_id=75e9f9a4-29cb-48b8-ac22-f15214f62989)
- [Usage guide](https://data4agent.top/en/agent.md)
- [OpenAPI](https://data4agent.top/openapi.json)

```json
{"dataset_id":"149b5e13-ea3d-4cc0-9fc4-710bc7ae5ca0","release_id":"75e9f9a4-29cb-48b8-ac22-f15214f62989","page_size":100}
```