This article explores how 19th century railways shaped population dynamics in Spain. Results showed that the municipalities closest to stations experienced significantly greater population growth. However, this effect was heterogeneous over time and depended on the territorial specificities and municipal features of the areas traversed. It was greatest in densely populated and industrializing areas, and in the valleys and the coast, although it also remained relevant in less dynamic contexts. These findings suggest that railways likely stimulated factor mobility and economies of agglomeration. However, this technology also reinforced existing hierarchies thus exacerbating an unequal distribution of the population in space.

En este artículo analizamos la expansión de la red de ferrocarril en España a partir de la evolución de las compañías del sector durante el período 1848-1941. Para ello hemos elaborado una nueva base de datos que incluye los tramos, líneas y estaciones y apeaderos que operó cada compañía en cada uno de los años del período. Además, utilizamos GIS para vincular este proceso de expansión con el territorio y sus características. Nuestros resultados señalan que la red mayoritariamente se desarrolló siguiendo criterios económicos y de estrategias de rentabilidad empresarial de las compañías.

The main objective of this article is to explore the possibility of combining two very different sources in order to study the distribution of industrial activity throughout history. The traditional primary sources to use for this purpose are the official censuses on population and economic activity that have been conducted in the majority of countries since the mid-nineteenth century. However, the majority of these lack detail at the regional level and also with respect to the types of professional occupations that they quantify. In order to complement and profile these census data, we propose the use of another type of information which can also be quantified, but whose characteristics are very different. We refer to the industrial heritage sites identified in digital format in a given territory, which in this case is Catalonia, Spain. This innovative dataset was obtained using digital tools such as web scraping and data mining techniques. This type of historical information was used to check whether it is reliable and valid for interpreting the spatial impact of the introduction of industrial activity. The article also shows that the systematic identification of elements of industrial heritage offers a new and very useful source of information for interpreting the history of industrial geography.