The article deals with technological issues of designing a geographic information system on the employment of the Russian Empire population at the turn of the XIX– XX centuries, which aims to create an effective tool for spatial analysis, as well as an open historical and geographical resource accessible and understandable for other researchers and allow solving users’ tasks. Having reviewed the modern GIS technology, the authors conclude that the topical historical and geographical research needs to combine different technologies. For the proposed project the choice was made of a classic GIS technology with open architecture of geographic information system. The technological scheme of development of GIS-project on employment of the population consists of six main stages, involving the preparation of the mathematical foundations for cartographical sources, input, geocoding statistics and cartography and statistical modeling, allowing realizing spatial analysis using GIS. The article also presents the prospects of development of using Web-GIS technologies.