Administrative Areas Shape Files and GeoPackages

Administrative boundaries made easy

A simple administrative boundary data set from OpenStreetMap is already part of our standard vector data exports. However, administrative boundaries in OSM usually don't contain information about the hierarchy, so you can't immediately see what state a county or city is in. Moreover, international (and sometimes even sub-national) boundaries will contain territorial waters in OSM. A country boundary may well be out on the sea instead of hugging the coastline - which is ok for some application but problematic for others.

Geofabrik can process adminstrative areas from OSM by

• computing hierarchies,
• clipping areas at the coastline, and
• simplifying boundary lines.

This data set can be produced world-wide, or for selected countries only, and can cover various levels of administrative boundaries.

Documentation and Test Dataset

• Documentation (PDF)
• Test data (Friesland)

Quotes and Ordering

Geofabrik vector data exports are created from current data according to your request. To make an offer, we'll need the following information:

• requested spatial extract (individual countries, continents or the whole world)
• which administrative levels you need (from international down to city boroughs)
• file format
• requested preprocessing steps (hierarchy building, clipping, simplification)
• special requirements (e.g. additional languzages for labelling)
• frequency of ordering (one-time vs. regular updates)

Geofabrik will charge a previously agreed fixed price for these services based on the amount of work involved. Please request a quotation if you are interested! The money we charge is a handling fee that covers our work in exporting the data; the data itself is licensed under ODbL 1.0 which means that you can use it unrestricted, without having to pay a license fee.