Skip to content

Availability: Functional areas

The following indicator is under consideration for this pilot edition of the Barometer: To what extent are geospatial functional areas available as structured open data?

Feedback on draft Global Data Barometer Indicators

You are looking at a draft indicator to be included in the expert survey of the Global Data Barometer. Between now and May 10th we are inviting your feedback on this indicator and the elements it contains. You can provide your feedback by (a) completing the feedback form below; or (b) adding in-line annotations.

Feedback form

You can share your feedback on the Availability: Functional areas indicator here, or make use of Hypothes.is annotations

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

  • Is this data available online in any form?
    • Data is not available online
      Supporting questions: Are there other offline ways to access this data in the country? (e.g. attending an office to inspect it)
    • Data is available, but not as a result of government action
      Supporting questions: If government is not providing access to data, how is this data available? Please provide a URL for where this data can be found
    • Data is available from government, or because of government actions
      Supporting questions: Please provide a URL for where this data can be found

Elements

Part 1: Data coverage.

  • A map with administrative boundaries is available. (No, Partially, Yes)

  • A map with census units is available. (No, Partially, Yes)

  • A map with electoral units is available. (No, Partially, Yes)

  • A map with statistical units is available. (No, Partially, Yes)

Part 2: Data structure and openness.

  • Data is timely and updated. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    When was the most recent update to this dataset?

  • Dataset is available free of charge. (No, Partially, Yes)

  • Data is openly licensed. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If No: If there are explicit restrictions placed on re-use of the dataset, briefly describe those here.

    If Partially or Yes: If the data is provided with an explicit open license, please provide the name of the license, or a link to it here.

  • Data is available in all the country’s official or national languages. If the country has no official or national languages, data is available in the major languages of the country. (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please briefly describe the language coverage available.

  • Data is provided in machine-readable format(s) (No, Partially, Yes)

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide a URL where this machine-readable data can be found. (Additional URLs can be included in the justification and supporting evidence)

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide a comma separated list of the formats available? (E.g. csv, json)

    If Partially: What prevents you from assessing this data as fully machine-readable?

  • The machine-readable dataset is available as a whole (No, Partially, Yes) Answer no if it's only possible to access individual records; Answer partially if it's possible to export extracts of the data; Answer yes if there are bulk downloads or APIs providing access to the whole dataset without financial, technical or legal barriers.

    Supporting questions (conditional)

    If Partially or Yes: Please provide a URL where bulk download access is available or described.

    If Partially or Yes: If bulk access is provided through an API, please provide a link to where the API is described.

Part 3: Data fields.

  • The datasets have a field with the geometry of functional areas. (No, Partially, Yes)

  • The dataset includes information about the level of hierarchy of each functional area. (No, Partially, Yes)

  • Each record has a code that enables the geospatial representation of data published in other datasets. (No, Partially, Yes)

  • The datasets include the name of each functional area. (No, Partially, Yes)

Extent

  • How comprehensive is the data assessed for this question?
    • The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without available data, or with data of a lesser quality.
      Supporting questions: Which locality does this data cover?
    • The data assessed covers one or more localities, and is a representative example of the kind of data that can be found for all, or most, localities.
    • The data assessed provides national coverage.

Definitions and Identification

This indicator is concerned with data that describes the geographic boundaries used to set government responsibilities, administer elections, collect national statistics, and carry out census data collection.

Geographical representation of functional areas can refer to a wide range of sub-themes, from administrative and statistical units to school catchments or agricultural zones. To narrow the scope of this indicator, we focus on the following sets of boundaries that allow us to link relevant data to a spatial extent:

  • Administrative boundaries: polygons for relevant administrative units, typically smaller than states or provinces.
  • Census units boundaries: borders of census units that facilitate mapping census results; these could be at a block level or custom census units, but it will be useful to get a geospatial extent of census results.
  • National electoral units boundaries: the most granular electoral map of the country, for mapping election results.
  • Statistical boundaries: statistics are produced—and refer to—different places at different scales. For example, geospatial representation of relevant and regularly measured statistics on health, crime, education, or poverty.

These forms of data may be available as layers in a central geodata portal, or may be available from different agencies. In general, each form of functional area will be organised hierarchically (e.g., first-level administrative boundaries covering states will contain second-level administrative boundaries covering counties or municipalities, and so-on) and structured data will contain information on this hierarchy.

This indicator is focused on datasets that enable geospatial analysis of different metrics, so it tracks the availability of boundaries data in formats suitable for representing polygons in spaces, such as .csv with WKT fields, .shp, .geoJSON, or in the forms of WMS or many others available.

Most datasets comprising functional areas geographies should include fields with their geometry, including: level (in the hierarchy), code, name, and function.

  • Search:

    • Geoportals
    • Websites of national statistics offices may provide these kinds of spatial datasets to map their statistics.
    • National mapping agencies portals

  • Consult:

    • Professionals that work with statistics and administrative public data
    • Experts in GIS and data for public good
    • Geospatial data communities
    • Open data communities

What to look for?

Look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

  • Are datasets with functional areas available online?
  • Are they free, updated, machine-readable, and accessible as a whole?
  • Which of these kinds of datasets are available?
    • Census units?
    • Electoral units?
    • Administrative borders?
    • Statistical units?

National and sub-national considerations

As integrating national frameworks and datasets helps make geospatial data more useful, some countries may make all of these datasets available through the same website. In other countries, however, individual states or provinces may have their own geoportals, or even publish this information through the websites of different agencies.

If this information is not centralized in the country you're researching, assess the most complete example, and then indicate whether this is an outlier, or an example of widespread practice

Geospatial datasets are key to tackle different kinds of challenges that emanate from a multiplicity of places—social, economical, environmental, accountability, and so on. When it comes to picking up the availability of specific datasets to assess a country against, there exist a plethora of options given the varied topics and themes where geospatial data is crucial. That is why the Working Group on Global Fundamental Geospatial Data Themes from the UN-GGIM has selected and defined 14 Fundamental Data Themes, that are meant to be a solid foundation to support global geospatial information management, specifically used to support the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework, among other global initiatives to strengthen geospatial information, within each country, but also taking into consideration global initiatives and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

By Fundamental Data Themes, the UN-GGIM refers to "the minimum primary sets of data that can not be derived from other data sets, and that are required to spatially represent phenomena, objects, or themes important for the realisation of economic, social, and environmental benefits consistently" (UN-GGIM, 2019) across a country, at the local, national and regional levels.

Within the selected fundamental datasets, this indicator will focus on Functional Areas, defined as "the geographical extent of administrative, legislative, regulatory, electoral, statistical, governance, service delivery and activity management areas". These datasets are key to informing public policies, and they are not widely covered in other GDB thematic modules.