Global Administrative Areas (GADM)

Description

GADM is a database of the location of the world's administrative areas (boundaries). Administrative areas in this database include: countries, counties, departments, etc. and cover every country in the world. For each area it provides some attributes, foremost being the name and in some cases variant names.

Visitors to the GADM website can download administrative boundaries for individual counties or they can download admin boundaries for the entire world. The Geospatial Centre only has available from it's server the administration boundaries for the entire world.

In May 2014, the Geospatial Centre acquired GADM data (Version 2.0 (January 2012).

Spatial reference and data type

The data are in Esri shapefile and geodatabase format.

Data access

In order to access this database, please visit the Geospatial Centre Reference Desk during reference hours or download from the the GADM website. Library reference staff are available to provide further information about these data sets and to deliver data upon request.

Data manipulation and storage

There are public workstations in the Geospatial Centre that provide access to ArcGIS software programs, program extensions and data manipulation utilities. Patrons may use the Gegraphic Information System (GIS) software in the library to view and manipulate the data. University of Waterloo faculty, students and staff may copy these data to other media (for example: CD, DVD or Zip disc) for use elsewhere.

Data output

These files may be exported from ArcGIS in a choice of bitmapped formats (also known as raster graphics) including JPG, TIFF, GIF, and BMP or in a choice of vector graphics formats including Adobe Illustrator (AI), Encapsulated Postscript (EPS), and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Yet another option is PDF.

Use restrictions/licensing/copyright

This data are provided for personal use for academic, research, and/or teaching purposes. Library staff will ask patrons to read and sign a data release agreement before these licensed data can be released. The University of Berleley, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and the International Rice Research Institute by Robert Hijmans, Nell Garcia, Julian Kapoor, Anrel Rala, Aileen Maunahan, and John Wieczorek must be acknowledged on any derivative product, whether printed or electronic, including for example, a printed map, a raster or vector graphic, a web-based application, etc. Patrons are advised to fully respect the provisions of Canada's Copyright Act as well as terms and conditions imposed by the data provider.