Administrative Boundaries

What this dataset is

Administrative boundary polygons for every country, sub-national region, second-level district and third-level municipality on earth, harmonised to a single schema with consistent identifiers and multilingual name fields.

Boundaries are sourced from each country’s national mapping or statistics agency wherever possible, falling back to international datasets where national data is unavailable or restricted. Every polygon is tagged with its source.

What you get

• Four levels of administrative hierarchy: country, region, district, municipality.
• A stable identifier for every polygon that does not change across vintages.
• Name fields in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Chinese and the official local language(s).
• Metadata on disputed and contested borders, with alternative representations.

Typical uses

• Aggregating point data (events, observations, signals) to admin units.
• Choropleth maps and dashboards.
• Joining statistical and demographic data to geography.
• Election results, public-health and education reporting.

A note on disputed borders

Where international borders are disputed, this dataset includes both representations and flags the polygon as contested. We do not endorse any particular position on disputed sovereignty.

Suggested attribution