This work presents a time series of distributed global radiation data in a mountainous area in southern Europe: Sierra Nevada Mountain Range (Spain). The range is representative of semiarid high elevation regions with significant topographic gradients, high insolation rates, and the coexistence of Alpine and Mediterranean conditions. The datasets consist of nineteen years (2000-2018) of high resolution (30m x 30m) daily, monthly and annual global radiation maps derived using the model proposed by Aguilar et al. (2009), driven by in situ daily global radiation measurements, from sixteen weather stations with historical records in the area, and a high resolution digital elevation model.