GADM
GADM, the Database of Global Administrative Areas, is a high-resolution database of country administrative areas, with a goal of "all countries, at all levels, at any time period."[2]
 Level 1 administrative divisions of Germany, created from GADM data | |
| Original author(s) | Robert J. Hijmans |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2009 |
| Stable release | 3.6
/ 6 May 2018[1] |
| Written in | shapefile |
| Type | Geographic Information Systems, Data visualization |
| License | Copyrighted with academic friendly policy |
| Website | gadm |
The database is available in a few export formats, including shapefiles that are used in most common GIS applications.[3] Files for use with the data analysis language R are also available.
The files allow for data analysis as well as the easy creation of descriptive data plots that include geographical maps.[4][5]
Although it is a public database, GADM has a higher spatial resolution than other free databases,[6] and also higher than commercial software such as ArcGIS.[7]
GADM is not freely available for commercial use. The GADM project created the spatial data for many countries from spatial databases provided by national governments, NGO, and/or from maps and lists of names available on the Internet (e.g. from Wikipedia).