Authored by Dr. Uwe Deichmann
National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis
University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
uwe@ncgia.ucsb.edu
Last edition by UNEP/DEIA/GRID-Geneva: 3 May 1996
The development of this database was supported by the United Nations Environment Programme / Global Resource Information Database (UNEP/GRID) and the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), in the context of the UNEP/CGIAR Initiative on the Use of GIS in Agricultural Research. Additional support and facilities were provided by the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA).
The current database builds upon earlier work at NCGIA described in:
"Tobler, W., U. Deichmann, J. Gottsegen and K. Maloy (1995), The global demography project, Technical Report 95-6, NCGIA, Santa Barbara."
The global demography project was supported by the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., and NCGIA.
Other groups participating in or supporting this effort include:
The Asian administrative boundaries and population database is part of an ongoing effort to improve global, spatially referenced demographic data holdings. Such databases are useful for a variety of applications including strategic-level agricultural research and applications in the analysis of the human dimensions of global change. While the private sector is addressing some of this need for spatial data by marketing georeferenced demographic databases for developed and some large developing countries (e.g., Mexico or India), administrative boundaries and population figures for many countries are still hard to obtain. This project (which has been carried out as a cooperative activity between NCGIA and UNEP/DEIA/GRID-Geneva between Oct. 1995 and present) has pooled available data sets, many of which had been assembled for the global demography project. All data were checked, international boundaries and coastlines were replaced with a standard template, the attribute database was redesigned, and new, more reliable population estimates for subnational units were produced for all countries. From the resulting data sets, raster surfaces representing population distribution and population density were created in collaboration between NCGIA and GRID-Geneva.
This documentation provides important information about the databases. Part I describes the development of data layers of administrative boundaries with population totals. This section gives general background information on data sources and estimation procedures. It also discusses the limitations of the database which should be kept in mind in any application. Part II presents the methodology used for constructing a set of gridded data layers of population distribution. Finally, a table containing summary information and images of administrative boundaries and population densities is presented in the appendix which also provides detailed data source information and processing steps for each country.
Boundary
and population data... / Any
comments or questions to