geoBoundaries: A global database of political administrative boundaries
Date Published
Apr 24, 2020
Authors
Daniel Runfola, Austin Anderson, Heather Baier, Matt Crittenden, Elizabeth Dowker, Sydney Fuhrig, Seth Goodman, Grace Grimsley, Rachel Layko, Graham Melville, Maddy Mulder, Rachel Oberman, Joshua Panganiban, Andrew Peck, Leigh Seitz, Sylvia Shea, Hannah Slevin, Rebecca Youngerman, Lauren Hobbs
Publisher
PLOS One
Citation
Runfola D, Anderson A, Baier H, Crittenden M, Dowker E, Fuhrig S, et al. (2020) geoBoundaries: A global database of political administrative boundaries. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0231866. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231866
Abstract
We present the geoBoundaries Global Administrative Database (geoBoundaries): an online, open license resource of the geographic boundaries of political administrative divisions (i.e., state, county). Contrasted to other resources geoBoundaries (1) provides detailed information on the legal open license for every boundary in the repository, and (2) focuses on provisioning highly precise boundary data to support accurate, replicable scientific inquiry. Further, all data is released in a structured form, allowing for the integration of geoBoundaries with large-scale computational workflows. Our database has records for every country around the world, with up to 5 levels of administrative hierarchy. The database is accessible at http://www.geoboundaries.org, and a static version is archived on the Harvard Dataverse.