Datenbanken der Historischen Statistik im ZHSF

Abstract

The availability of historical statistical data of high quality in machine-readable form for Germany is in a lamentable condition. The existing data are scattered over numerous publications. They are only partially available in machine-readable form and only a small part of them is stored in public archives. But not only that most of the existing machine-readable data are not archived, for Germany we also miss a statistical handbook for the history of economy, society and state - in printed as well as in electronic form - which presents the relevant figures in a systematic way. The online data bank HISTAT tries to offer the historical statistical data to the scientific community. This data bank does not only present the numerous figures and time series, it also documents the various annotations which help to understand the figures and the sources that have been the basis for creating the figures by the researcher, and, last but not least, it contains the literature which was consulted when editing the data. The final goal of this data bank is to present the data in a systematic way. Like the Statistical Yearbook, the online data bank must offer the categorized time series for different regions and branches, together with all information that are necessary to understand and evaluate historically the meaning of these statistical data.