The dataset is based on the population census of the Netherlands of 1840.Content: images of the publication, searchable pdf file of the text sections, excel files with data entered from the published tables and from the additions and corrections issued as an appendix to the census of 1859.

In 1999, to celebrate the jubilee of 100 years of the Statistics Netherlands, the publications with the results of all Dutch censuses of 1795, 1830, 1840, 1849, 1859, 1869, 1879, 1889, 1899, 1909, 1919, 1920, 1930, 1947, 1956, 1960 and 1971 have been scanned. In addition, the census data of the jubilee year 1899 have been entered in a database.The data served for a creation of two sets of CD's published by the Statistics Netherlands:Set 1: Data en publicatie volkstelling 1899. Two cd-rom's. ISBN 90.6861.176.3 (see http://www.aksant.nl/boeken/boek_464.asp).Set 2: Publicaties volkstellingen 1795-1971. Five cd-rom's, ISBN 90.6861.177.1 (see http://www.aksant.nl/boeken/boek_465.asp).

Tot februari 2015 waren de gescande bladen enkel als afgeleide JPEG-bestanden bij deze dataset gepubliceerd. Op 25 februari 2015 zijn de scans van de bladen in de originele hoge kwaliteit TIFF-bestanden bij de dataset geplaatst en in plaats van de lagere kwaliteit JPEG-bestanden beschikbaar gesteld.

Up until February 2015, the images of the publications were only published as low-quality JPEG images. On February 25th, 2015, the original high-quality TIFF images were also added to the dataset file content and published instead of the lower quality JPEG images.