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Hello there, I am currently evaluating various sets of administrative boundaries to determine best fit for a project. I have explored the OSM site and have not been able to locate a clear outline of the OSM administrative boundary data dimensionality. Specifically, I am looking to learn:
Thank you for your help! |
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Hi, OSM is a volunteer-based decentralized platform covering the whole world, so there can be a lot of differences between locations when it comes to the sources, freshness, update pattern or completeness. It's people trying to depict reality, not governments controlling the data. Global country level is 2 (although level 1 is also used somewhere, according to database stats - https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/admin_level#values ), you can see these data here: |
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OSM does not store historical data (former administrative boundaries) so we have no data which is guaranteed to pertain to your timerange. On the contrary, we take pride in updating administrative boundaries (for instance commune mergers in France and Switzerland) as soon as they become active. Also as @kocio says there will be significant variation between regions in the range of coverage of boundary data. |
