In this third installment of the series “Before It Was Called Citizen Science,” we present Pascual Madoz (1845–1850), a territorial “Wikipedia” built before the internet.
Introduction. Between 1845 and 1850, the sixteen volumes of the Geographical-Statistical-Historical Dictionary of Spain and its Overseas Possessions were published — one of the largest territorial information-gathering enterprises carried out in 19th-century Spain. Although the work bears the name of Pascual Madoz, behind it lay an extensive network of correspondents, local collaborators, and editorial workers. More than the result of a single author, the “Madoz” was a great collective infrastructure of knowledge.
A distributed network of collaborators. Madoz relied on more than a thousand collaborators and around twenty correspondents spread across Spain and overseas territories. From various locations they sent news, descriptions, and data about municipalities, villages, and regions. The information covered topics as diverse as terrain and climate, roads and communications, agriculture, industry, commerce, schools, population, taxation, and local history. This network made it possible to gather knowledge from very distant territories and turn it into an organized, searchable work. Viewed from today, it is reminiscent of distributed information-production systems now called crowdsourcing, although its operation was entirely centralized and hierarchical.
Local knowledge and editorial organization. Collaborators contributed close-to-the-ground information, but this did not go straight to the printer. The editorial team led by Madoz had to sort the responses, compare them with administrative documentation, and adapt them to a common structure. For more significant localities, entries followed up to twelve sections covering their location, population, territory, communications, production, industry, commerce, wealth, and history. The value of the project lay not only in the quantity of data collected, but also in the attempt to apply a common template to thousands of places. That standardization made it possible to compare territories and build a general picture of the country from numerous partial contributions.
A valuable source that must also be read critically. The Dictionary remains a reference for historians, geographers, demographers, and local heritage scholars. However, not all the information it contains is equally reliable. Some of its figures came from incomplete official records, and some informants may have concealed or altered data related to population, wealth, or taxes. Its importance does not eliminate these limitations: it serves as a reminder that every collective project needs common protocols, source traceability, and validation mechanisms.
Why is Madoz’s project a benchmark in citizen science?
- Collective intelligence. The work brought together thousands of local contributions to build a broad and detailed vision of the territory.
- Situated knowledge. Collaborators provided first-hand information about the places they inhabited, showing that knowledge is also produced outside academic and administrative centers.
- Coordination of contributions. A common structure made it possible to organize, compare, and convert local information into a collective work of national scope.
- Dissemination of knowledge. The Madoz gathered and circulated an enormous amount of territorial information, anticipating the current value of sharing and making collective knowledge accessible.
- An open tension. The project had centralized direction: Madoz selected the collaborators and controlled the editing. Even so, it anticipated current citizen science questions such as territorial participation, data validation, and recognition of contributors.
Did you know…?
Madoz himself rejected sole credit for the work: “I am not the author of the Dictionary,” he stated, acknowledging the work of his collaborators and the editorial office. Its sixteen volumes total more than eleven thousand pages and remain an essential source for studying mid-19th-century Spain. Its history also teaches that gathering large amounts of data is not enough: to build collective knowledge, it is necessary to know its origin, verify its quality, and make its possible limitations visible.
References
Camarero Bullón, C., and Fidalgo Hijano, C. (2007). Conocer el territorio y sus gentes: el Diccionario geográfico-histórico-estadístico de España y sus posesiones de Ultramar de Pascual Madoz. Biblioteca: estudio e investigación, 22, 9–32. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=3082821
Madoz, P. (1845–1850). Diccionario geográfico-estadístico-histórico de España y sus posesiones de Ultramar (16 vols.). Madrid: Imprenta del Diccionario.
Martín García, J. J. (2020). «Ocultando cantidades de mucha consideración»: población y riqueza en el Diccionario de Madoz. El caso de Burgos (1845–1850). Alcores: Revista de Historia Contemporánea, 23, 105–136. https://doi.org/10.69791/rahc.37