Introduction

Geographical scale, in terms of spatial extent, provide a basis for other branches of science. This dataset contains newly proposed geographical and geological GIS boundaries for the Pan-Tibetan Highlands (new proposed name for the High Mountain Asia), based on geological and geomorphological features. This region comprises the Tibetan Plateau and three adjacent mountain regions: the Himalaya, Hengduan Mountains and Mountains of Central Asia, and boundaries are also given for each subregion individually. The dataset will benefit quantitative spatial analysis by providing a well-defined geographical scale for other branches of research, aiding cross-disciplinary comparisons and synthesis, as well as reproducibility of research results.

The dataset comprises three subsets, and we provide three data formats (.shp, .geojson and .kmz) for each of them. Shapefile format (.shp) was generated in ArcGIS Pro, and the other two were converted from shapefile, the conversion steps refer to 'Data processing' section below. The following is a description of the three subsets:

(1) The GIS boundaries we newly defined of the Pan-Tibetan Highlands and its four constituent sub-regions, i.e. the Tibetan Plateau, Himalaya, Hengduan Mountains and the Mountains of Central Asia. All files are placed in the "Pan-Tibetan Highlands (Liu et al._2022)" folder.

(2) We also provide GIS boundaries that were applied by other studies (cited in Fig. 3 of our work) in the folder "Tibetan Plateau and adjacent mountains (Others’ definitions)". If these data is used, please cite the relevent paper accrodingly. In addition, it is worthy to note that the GIS boundaries of Hengduan Mountains (Li et al. 1987a) and Mountains of Central Asia (Foggin et al. 2021) were newly generated in our study using Georeferencing toolbox in ArcGIS Pro.

(3) Geological assemblages and characters of the Pan-Tibetan Highlands, including Cratons and micro-continental blocks (Fig. S1), plus sutures, faults and thrusts (Fig. 4), are placed in the "Pan-Tibetan Highlands (geological files)" folder.

Note: High Mountain Asia: The name ‘High Mountain Asia’ is the only direct synonym of Pan-Tibetan Highlands, but this term is both grammatically awkward and somewhat misleading, and hence the term ‘Pan-Tibetan Highlands’ is here proposed to replace it. Third Pole: The first use of the term ‘Third Pole’ was in reference to the Himalaya by Kurz & Montandon (1933), but the usage was subsequently broadened to the Tibetan Plateau or the whole of the Pan-Tibetan Highlands. The mainstream scientific literature refer the ‘Third Pole’ to the region encompassing the Tibetan Plateau, Himalaya, Hengduan Mountains, Karakoram, Hindu Kush and Pamir. This definition was surpported by geological strcture (Main Pamir Thrust) in the western part, and generally overlaps with the ‘Tibetan Plateau’ sensu lato defined by some previous studies, but is more specific.

More discussion and reference about names please refer to the paper. The figures (Figs. 3, 4, S1) mentioned above were attached in the end of this document.

Data processing

We provide three data formats. Conversion of shapefile data to kmz format was done in ArcGIS Pro. We used the Layer to KML tool in Conversion Toolbox to convert the shapefile to kmz format. Conversion of shapefile data to geojson format was done in R. We read the data using the shapefile function of the raster package, and wrote it as a geojson file using the geojson_write function in the geojsonio package.

Version

Version 2022.1.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB31010000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41971071), the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, CAS (ZDBS-LY-7001). We are grateful to our coauthors insightful discussion and comments. We also want to thank professors Jed Kaplan, Yin An, Dai Erfu, Zhang Guoqing, Peter Cawood, Tobias Bolch and Marc Foggin for suggestions and providing GIS files.

Citation

Liu, J., Milne, R. I., Zhu, G. F., Spicer, R. A., Wambulwa, M. C., Wu, Z. Y., Li, D. Z. (2022). Name and scale matters: Clarifying the geography of Tibetan Plateau and adjacent mountain regions. Global and Planetary Change, In revision

Jie Liu & Guangfu Zhu. (2022). Geographical and geological GIS boundaries of the Tibetan Plateau and adjacent mountain regions (Version 2022.1). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6432940

Contacts

Dr. Jie LIU: E-mail: liujie@mail.kib.ac.cn;

Mr. Guangfu ZHU: zhuguangfu@mail.kib.ac.cn

Institution: Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Address: 132# Lanhei Road, Heilongtan, Kunming 650201, Yunnan, China

Copyright

This dataset is available under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Healthcare Data for use with GIS mapping software, databases, and web applications are from Caliper Corporation and contain point geographic files of healthcare organizations, providers, and hospitals and an boundary file of Primary Care Service Areas.

This dataset contains Mining Leases issued under the Minerals Development Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 by the Department for the Economy. These data geometry are polygons showing the extent of the lease. The attribute table identifies the Lease ID, the Lease Holder, the date the lease was issued and the date the lease is due to expire. These data are provided in the following formats: Geodatabase, GeoJSON, Geopackage, KMZ. GeoJSON and KML data are in Lat Long, WGS84. GeoDatabase, GeoPackage are in Irish National Grid.

Census Block Groups data for use with GIS mapping software, databases, and web applications are from Caliper Corporation and contain block group boundaries with associated Census and American Community Survey demographic data.

Metadata Portal Metadata Information

This dataset was created by TxDOT for internal purposes. TxDOT is not the authority for county boundary data for the state. These features were digitized by TxDOT from georeferenced USGS topo maps to enable the classification of roadway attributes for the purposes of satisfying federal and state reporting requirements, and to serve as a base layer for TxDOT's cartographic products. This version utilizes a generalized boundary along the coast, which is sometimes necessary for analysis in which it is important to encompass segments of roadways that travel over water. Roadways on bridges or causeways that span intracoastal waterways are not covered by detailed polygons that precisely follow the coastline, therefore a generalized boundary is needed for some types of analysis where it is important to preserve such relationships.Use at your own risk. Update Frequency: As NeededSource: Texas General Land OfficeSecurity Level: PublicOwned by TxDOT: FalseRelated LinksData Dictionary PDF [Generated 2025/03/14]

Ruta 05 (ARGELIA 2 - PARAISO), dato Geoespacial de la ruta de transporte urbano de Sincelejo. Es posible exportar este conjunto de datos como formato KML, KMZ, Shapefile, Original, GeoJSON o por capas especificas en formato CSV, JSON o GeoJSON.

2000 Census Tract data for use with GIS mapping software, databases, and web applications are from Caliper Corporation. Available for Maptitude or in any format such as shapefile, KML, KMZ, GeoJSON.

2010 Census Tract data for use with GIS mapping software, databases, and web applications are from Caliper Corporation. Available for Maptitude or in any format such as shapefile, KML, KMZ, GeoJSON.

Ruta 07 (BOGOTA 3 - BARLOVENTO), dato Geoespacial de la ruta de transporte urbano de Sincelejo. Es posible exportar este conjunto de datos como formato KML, KMZ, Shapefile, Original, GeoJSON o por capas especificas en formato CSV, JSON o GeoJSON.

Ruta 08 (BOGOTA 2 - SALVADOR), dato Geoespacial de la ruta de transporte urbano de Sincelejo. Es posible exportar este conjunto de datos como formato KML, KMZ, Shapefile, Original, GeoJSON o por capas especificas en formato CSV, JSON o GeoJSON.

Ruta 02 (CECAR - PIONEROS), dato Geoespacial de la ruta de transporte urbano de Sincelejo. Es posible exportar este conjunto de datos como formato KML, KMZ, Shapefile, Original, GeoJSON o por capas especificas en formato CSV, JSON o GeoJSON.

🇩🇪 독일 German A social area is defined in the concept ‘Lebenswert Veedel - Bürger- und Sozialraumorientierung in Köln’. Launched in 2006 and adopted by the Council in 2010, the concept is intended to strengthen cooperation and networking between the city, private institutions and the population through projects on topics such as education, sport, culture or community. In 2019, the number of social spaces was expanded from 11 to 15 and the boundaries slightly changed. More information at https://www.stadt-koeln.de/leben-in-koeln/soziales/lebenswert-veedel Explanation of the attributes is attached to the shapefile as CSV. Equivalent to the Statistical quarters, which served as the basis for the layout of the social spaces, some social spaces have exclaves. These are indicated by the addition ‘(Exclave)’ in the attribute Name. Coordinate system Shapefile: ETRS 1989 UTM Zone 32N Coordinate system KMZ & JSON: WGS 1984 The data set Raumbezugssystem Geopackage. contains all spatial data of the municipal subdivision, electoral units and other subdivisions.