FAO GAUL: Global Administrative Unit Layers 2025, Second-Level Administrative Units

Dataset Availability

2025-01-01T00:00:00Z–2025-12-31T00:00:00Z

Dataset Producer

FAO UN

Earth Engine Snippet

FeatureCollection
ee.FeatureCollection("FAO/GAUL/2025/level2")

FeatureView
ui.Map.FeatureViewLayer("FAO/GAUL/2025/level2_FeatureView")

Tags

borders county districts fao gaul infrastructure-boundaries table un

Description

The administrative boundaries dataset at level 2 (sub-national level) is part of the Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL 2025) dataset series which includes information on administrative units for all countries in the world, providing a contribution to the standardization of the spatial dataset representing administrative units.

The administrative boundaries at the level 2 dataset distinguishes Districts, Counties, Municipalities and equivalents.

The GAUL maintains global layers with a unified coding system at country, first (e.g. departments), and second administrative levels (e.g. districts). The overall GAUL methodology consists in a) collecting the best available data from most reliable sources, b) assembling national datasets into a common dataset by matching international boundaries with a reference authoritative dataset (UN 2018), c) standardizing attributes to a common table of attributes, d) generating codes using the GAUL Coding System, e) applying a topology, and f) validating metadata for each country (see Technical Guidelines of the GAUL 2024 Set). Note that some administrative units are multipolygon features.

Table Schema

Table Schema

Name	Type	Description
FID	INT	Internal feature identifier
ISO3_CODE	STRING	ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code
MAP_CODE	STRING	Map code for statistical joins
GAUL0_CODE	INT	GAUL country code
GAUL0_NAME	STRING	Country name (UN standard)
GAUL1_CODE	INT	GAUL code of administrative units at first level
GAUL1_NAME	STRING	Name of administrative units at first level
GAUL2_CODE	INT	GAUL code of administrative units at second level
GAUL2_NAME	STRING	Name of administrative units at second level
CONTINENT	STRING	Continent name
DISP_EN	STRING	Hierarchical display label in English

Terms of Use

Terms of Use

The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of FAO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Use of the FAO logo is strictly prohibited. CC-BY-4.0

Citations

Citations:

• FAO. 2025. Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL). https://data.apps.fao.org. Licence: CC-BY-4.0

Explore with Earth Engine

Important: Earth Engine is a platform for petabyte-scale scientific analysis and visualization of geospatial datasets, both for public benefit and for business and government users. Earth Engine is free to use for research, education, and nonprofit use. To get started, please register for Earth Engine access.

Code Editor (JavaScript)

var dataset = ee.FeatureCollection('FAO/GAUL/2025/level2');

Map.setCenter(12.876, 42.682, 5);

var styleParams = {
  fillColor: 'b5ffb4',
  color: '00909F',
  width: 1.0,
};

dataset = dataset.style(styleParams);

Map.addLayer(dataset, {}, 'Second Level Administrative Units');

Open in Code Editor

Visualize as a FeatureView

A FeatureView is a view-only, accelerated representation of a FeatureCollection. For more details, visit the FeatureView documentation.

Important: Earth Engine is a platform for petabyte-scale scientific analysis and visualization of geospatial datasets, both for public benefit and for business and government users. Earth Engine is free to use for research, education, and nonprofit use. To get started, please register for Earth Engine access.

Code Editor (JavaScript)

var fvLayer = ui.Map.FeatureViewLayer('FAO/GAUL/2025/level2_FeatureView');

var visParams = {
  color: '00909F',
  fillColor: 'b5ffb4',
  opacity: 1,
  width: 1,
  pointSize: 1
};

fvLayer.setVisParams(visParams);
fvLayer.setName('Second Level Administrative Units');

Map.setCenter(12.876, 42.682, 5);
Map.add(fvLayer);

Open in Code Editor

FAO GAUL: Global Administrative Unit Layers 2025, Second-Level Administrative Units

The administrative boundaries dataset at level 2 (sub-national level) is part of the Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL 2025) dataset series which includes information on administrative units for all countries in the world, providing a contribution to the standardization of the spatial dataset representing administrative units. The administrative boundaries at …

FAO/GAUL/2025/level2, borders,county,districts,fao,gaul,infrastructure-boundaries,table,un

2025-01-01T00:00:00Z/2025-12-31T00:00:00Z

-90 -180 90 180

Google Earth Engine

https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets