After learning about the US Census's TIGERLines datasets I've working with the following layers, from the USA data
- Country boundaries
- State boundaries
- County boundaries
- City boundaries
- ZipCode/Postcode boundaries
What I am trying to find is the equivalent (where appropriate) of the same data for various countries.
Is there any free administrative boundaries available as shapefiles for other countries?
Best Answer
Global
Australia
The Bureau of Statistics provides most of the information:
New Zealand
Koordinates - This site has free and pay data for New Zealand and various international areas (like Florida!). A range of free layers, boundaries, urban areas, land use, digital elevation, coastline, rivers etc... and topo maps, contours, aerials for some areas - pay for these. Excellent interface and system for ordering downloads.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/Geographic-areas/digital-boundary-files.aspx is the Statistics Department's set of administrative boundaries. They've got regions and territorial authorities (the rough equivalent of counties), urban areas (roughly city boundaries) and much more, including meshblocks, which most statistical data is tied to.
Canada
Great Britain
For a wide range of free data for Great Britain, visit the Ordnance Survey website: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/opendatadownload/products.html There's a product description page too (but I can't provide another hyperlink sigh)
The Boundary-Line dataset has a number of administrative boundary layers (though why they couldn't provide a simple, continuous, GB county boundary dataset in it is beyond me). However, there's a lot of good stuff on this site, including a GB post code gazetteer.
European Union
Eurostat provides several geo-datasets for EU and a few more countries for free for non-commercial use: Countries, NUTS, Communes, LAUs (municipalities) and coastlines: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administrative-units-statistical-units