This dataset presents 350 cartographic and topo-bathymetric resources on the French Rhône River (530 km in length) compiled from the 17th to mid-20th century, with a temporal focus prior to extensive river training (1860s). The data were collected in 14 national, regional, and departmental archive services: National Archives of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine (AN), Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), National Institute of Geographic and forest information (IGN), National Company of the Rhône River (CNR), Regional Directorate for Environment, Development and Housing (DREAL), University of Grenoble, Departmental Archives of Rhône (AD69), Ain (AD01), Gard (AD30), Savoie (AD73), Drôme (AD26), Ardèche (AD07), Isère (AD38), and Vaucluse (AD84).This database contains four datasets:- The iconographic dataset. The archived resources contain 3436 images stored in 32 files and 342 sub-files.- The table describing the properties of the 350 data items. This table has 18 columns that include the following: (1) the type of data: i.e. map, cross-section, long profile, table, topo-bathymetry drawn on the map, (2) the source (archive service) and reference (box number), (3) the original title (in French) and a translated English title, (4) the scale, author, and survey period, (5) the communes covered by the upstream-downstream Kilometric Points (KPs; km 0 is in Lyon, distances upstream from this reference point are negative and distances downstream are positive; the KPs were identified in ArcMap 10.5 using the GIS layer of riverine communes and active channels in 1860, to help in locating the maps with secondary channels), (6) comments on the quality and content of the data, (7) the number of images and their type (on a table or a magnetic board, HD scan, scanned and georeferenced), and (8) the storage file and sub-file.- The table listing the 281 archive box references consulted in this study.- The GIS polyline layer of the longitudinal coverage of the 350 data items (geographic coordinate system: WGS84 EPSG 4326).

The CC-BY-NC license was chosen to meet the data reuse policies of the 14 French archive services investigated in this study (either CC-BY or CC-BY-NC). Ten items among the 350 items in the dataset are not furnished in the iconographic database. They are indicated as “available on request” in the table ArchiveResources_Properties.csv, because of specific reuse policies of these institutions. Please consult the URLs of each institution's data reuse policy for further details (in French): AN (http://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/reutilisation-des-donnees-publiques), AD Ain (http://www.archives.ain.fr/n/reutilisation-des-donnees-publiques/n:124), AD Vaucluse (http://archives.vaucluse.fr/fileadmin/user_upload/_site-archives/autres_formats/6_qui_sommes_nous/infos_pratiques/ETALAB-Licence-Ouverte-v2.0_AD84.pdf), DREAL (CC-BY) (http://www.auvergne-rhone-alpes.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/les-conditions-de-mise-a-disposition-des-donnees-a9804.html), BnF (https://www.bnf.fr/fr/faire-une-utilisation-commerciale-dune-reproduction#:~:text=L'utilisation%20non%20commerciale%20des,ou%20Biblioth%C3%A8que%20nationale%20de%20France.), AD Rhône (https://archives.rhone.fr/?id=39), AD Ardèche (https://archives.ardeche.fr/n/reutilisation-des-informations-publiques/n:86), AD Drôme (https://archives.ladrome.fr/editorial/page/05bf1f6c-b194-4b79-89a0-8d5f13cf5a12), University of Grenoble (CC-BY-NC) (https://www.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/medias/fichier/charte-uga-v1-2-4_1540454734901-pdf?INLINE=FALSE), AD Gard (CC-BY-ND) (http://www.archives.gard.fr/direct-et-pratique/direct-pratique/reutilisation-des-donnees-publiques.html), AD Savoie (CC-BY-NC and nominative license: available on request) (http://www.savoie-archives.fr/865-reproduction-et-utilisation.htm), AD Isère (public dissemination prohibited: available on request) (https://archives.isere.fr/page/conditions-de-reutilisation-des-donnees-publiques), CNR (available on request), IGN (available at https://remonterletemps.ign.fr/).