Geospatial Data Pack for Visualization 🗺️

Learn Geographic Mapping with Altair, Vega-Lite and Vega using Curated Datasets

Complete geographic and geophysical data collection for mapping and visualization. This consolidation includes 18 complementary datasets used by 31+ Vega, Vega-Lite, and Altair examples 📊. Perfect for learning geographic visualization techniques including projections, choropleths, point maps, vector fields, and interactive displays.

Source data lives on GitHub and can also be accessed via CDN. The vega-datasets project serves as a common repository for example datasets used across these visualization libraries and related projects.

Why Use This Dataset? 🤔

• Comprehensive Geospatial Types: Explore a variety of core geospatial data models:
  • Vector Data: Includes points (like airports.csv), lines (like londonTubeLines.json), and polygons (like us-10m.json).
  • Raster-like Data: Work with gridded datasets (like windvectors.csv, annual-precip.json).
• Diverse Formats: Gain experience with standard and efficient geospatial formats like GeoJSON (see Table 1, 2, 4), compressed TopoJSON (see Table 1), and plain CSV/TSV (see Table 2, 3, 4) for point data and attribute tables ready for joining.
• Multi-Scale Coverage: Practice visualization across different geographic scales, from global and national (Table 1, 4) down to the city level (Table 1).
• Rich Thematic Mapping: Includes multiple datasets (Table 3) specifically designed for joining attributes to geographic boundaries (like states or counties from Table 1) to create insightful choropleth maps.
• Ready-to-Use & Example-Driven: Cleaned datasets tightly integrated with 31+ official examples (see Appendix) from Altair, Vega-Lite, and Vega, allowing you to immediately practice techniques like projections, point maps, network maps, and interactive displays.
• Python Friendly: Works seamlessly with essential Python libraries like Altair (which can directly read TopoJSON/GeoJSON), Pandas, and GeoPandas, fitting perfectly into the Kaggle notebook environment.

Table of Contents

• Why Use This Dataset?
• Dataset Inventory
• Usage Guide
• Appendix: Geospatial Examples by Technique
• Licenses
• Sources
• Learning Resources

Dataset Inventory 🗂️

This pack includes 18 datasets covering base maps, reference points, statistical data for choropleths, and geophysical data.

1. BASE MAP BOUNDARIES (Topological Data)

2. GEOGRAPHIC REFERENCE POINTS (Point Data) 📍

The choropleth map is a device used for the display of socioeconomic data associated with an areal partition of geographic space. Cartographers emphasize the need to standardize any raw count data by an area-based total before displaying the data in a choropleth map. The standardization process converts the raw data from an absolute measure into a relative measure. However, there is recognition that the standardizing process does not enable the map reader to distinguish between low–low and high–high numerator/denominator differences. This research uses concentration-based classification schemes using Lorenz curves to address some of these issues. A test data set of nonwhite birth rate by county in North Carolina is used to demonstrate how this approach differs from traditional mean–variance-based systems such as the Jenks’ optimal classification scheme.

This dataset contains geometry data for the countries of the world together with their names and country codes in various formats. The primary use case is choropleths, color-coded maps. The data can be read as a pandas DataFrame with geopandas and plotted with matplotlib. See the starter notebook for an example how to do it.

The data was created by Natural Earth. It is in public domain and free to use for any purpose at the time of this writing; you might want to check their Terms of Use.

Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

Context

I created a dataset to help people create choropleth maps of United States states.

Content

One geojson to plot the countries borders, and one csv from the Census Bureau for the us population per state.

Inspiration

I think the best way to use this dataset is in joining it with other data. For example, I used this dataset to plot police killings using the data from https://www.kaggle.com/jpmiller/police-violence-in-the-us

A comprehensive dataset of 1,513 Pakistani cities, towns, tehsils, districts and places with latitude/longitude, administrative region, population (when available) and Wikidata IDs — ideal for mapping, geospatial analysis, enrichment, and location-based ML.

Why this dataset is valuable:

• Full geocoordinates for every entry (100% coverage) — ready for mapping and spatial joins.
• Wide geographic coverage across all 7 major regions of Pakistan (provinces / administrative regions).
• Wikidata IDs included for reliable cross-referencing and automatic enrichment from external knowledge bases.
• Useful for data scientists, GIS engineers, civic tech projects, academic research, and startups building Pakistan-focused location services.

Highlights (fetched from the data):

• Total rows: 1,513
• Unique places (city field): 1,497
• Rows with population > 0: 526 (≈34.8%)
• Coordinate coverage: 1513 / 1513 (100%) — directly usable with mapping libraries.

Column definitions (short):

• id — Internal numeric row id (unique integer).
• wikiDataId — Wikidata QID (e.g., Q####) for the place; use to fetch rich metadata.
• type — Administrative/place type (e.g., ADM1, ADM2, city, district, tehsil).
• city — Common/local city/place name (short label).
• name — Full name / official name of the place (may include “District”, “Tehsil”, etc.).
• country — Country name (Pakistan).
• countryCode — ISO country code (e.g., PK).
• region — Primary administrative region / province (e.g., Punjab, Sindh).
• regionCode — Short code for region (e.g., PB, KP depending on your encoding).
• regionWdId — Wikidata QID for the region.
• latitude — Latitude in decimal degrees (float).
• longitude — Longitude in decimal degrees (float).
• population — Integer population (0 or NA where unknown).

Typical & high-value use cases:

• Mapping & visualization: choropleth maps, point overlays, heatmaps of population or density.
• Geospatial analysis: distance calculations, nearest-neighbor queries, clustering of urban centers.
• Data enrichment: join with other datasets (OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, census data) using wikiDataId and coordinates.
• Machine learning & NLP: training geolocation models, geoparsing, toponym resolution, place name disambiguation.
• Urban planning & research: analyze distribution of population-ready places vs administrative units.
• Mobile / location-based apps: lookup & reverse geocoding fallback, seeding POI databases for Pakistan.
• Humanitarian & disaster response: baseline location lists for logistics and situational awareness.

Anyone who has taught GIS using Census Data knows it is an invaluable data set for showing students how to take data stored in a table and join it to boundary data to transform this data into something that can be visualised and analysed spatially. Joins are a core GIS skill and need to be learnt, as not every data set is going to come neatly packaged as a shapefile or feature layer with all the data you need stored within. I don't know how many times I taught students to download data as a table from Nomis, load it into a GIS and then join that table data to the appropriate boundary data so they could produce choropleth maps to do some visual analysis, but it was a lot! Once students had gotten the hang of joins using census data they'd often ask why this data doesn't exist as a prepackaged feature layer with all the data they wanted within it. Well good news, now a lot off it is and it's accessible through the Living Atlas! Don't get me wrong I fully understand the importance of teaching students how to perform joins but once you have this understanding if you can access data that already contains all the information you need then you should be taking advantage of it to save you time. So in this exercise I am going to show you how to load English and Welsh Census Data from the 2021 Census into the ArcGIS Map Viewer from the Living Atlas and produce some choropleth maps to use to perform visual analysis without having to perform a single join.

We propose map reading experiments to quantitatively evaluate the selection of hue ranges for sequential color schemes on choropleth maps. In these experiments, 60 sequential color schemes with six base hues and ten hue ranges were employed as experimental color schemes, and a total of 414 college students were invited to complete identification, comparison, and ranking tasks. Both controlled and real-map experiments were performed, each involving a web-based survey and an eye-tracking experiment. In the controlled experiments, the shapes of the map objects were relatively regular, and attribute data were randomized. In contrast, the shapes were complex in real-map experiments, and real data were employed. Our findings show that widely used color schemes with a hue range of 0º yield poor performance in all tasks; 15º hue ranges yield good performance in the comparison and ranking tasks but poor performance in the identification task. For large hue ranges of 120-360º, participants showed...

Context

I used this publicly available data for making interactive map visualization of NYC. Zipcode geodata is useful for building interactive maps with each zip code area representing a separate area on the map.

Content

NYC zipcode geodata in geojson format

Acknowledgements

The rights belong to the original authors.

Context

The dataset defines the geographic polygon shapes of the prefectures of Japan. You can use it for plotting Mapbox Choropleth maps by the plotly package conveniently. It is a small modification from the dataset at https://github.com/dataofjapan/land/blob/master/japan.geojson.

Content

For each prefecture, an id is assigned. The id naming is something like 'Kyoto' which means for the Kyoto prefecture, and 'Okinawa' which means for the Okinawa prefecture.

Acknowledgements

It is a small modification from the original dataset at https://github.com/dataofjapan/land/blob/master/japan.geojson. I have added id for each element so that it can be conveniently used for plotting Mapbox Choropleth maps.

🌍 Countries and Dependencies by Population (2025)

This dataset provides a comprehensive list of countries and dependent territories worldwide, along with their most recent population estimates.The data is sourced from the Wikipedia page List of countries and dependencies by population, which compiles figures from national statistical offices and the United Nations Population Division

📄 Dataset Overview

• Country/Territory Name Includes sovereign states, dependent territories, and regions with limited recognition.
• Population Latest available estimates, primarily from national censuses or UN projection.
• Percentage of World Population Each country's population as a percentage of the global total.
• Date of Estimate The reference date for the population figure.
• Notes Additional information, such as inclusion or exclusion of certain region.

🧠 Potential Use Cases

• Analyzing global population distribution and trends.- Creating visualizations like choropleth maps.- Normalizing other datasets by population for per capita analysis.- Educational purposes in demographics and geography.

📌 Notes

• The dataset includes territories and regions with limited recognition to provide a complete global perspective.
• Population figures are based on the most recent estimates available as of 225.
• Data may be subject to revisions as new census information becomes available.

CrimeMapTutorial is a step-by-step tutorial for learning crime mapping using ArcView GIS or MapInfo Professional GIS. It was designed to give users a thorough introduction to most of the knowledge and skills needed to produce daily maps and spatial data queries that uniformed officers and detectives find valuable for crime prevention and enforcement. The tutorials can be used either for self-learning or in a laboratory setting. The geographic information system (GIS) and police data were supplied by the Rochester, New York, Police Department. For each mapping software package, there are three PDF tutorial workbooks and one WinZip archive containing sample data and maps. Workbook 1 was designed for GIS users who want to learn how to use a crime-mapping GIS and how to generate maps and data queries. Workbook 2 was created to assist data preparers in processing police data for use in a GIS. This includes address-matching of police incidents to place them on pin maps and aggregating crime counts by areas (like car beats) to produce area or choropleth maps. Workbook 3 was designed for map makers who want to learn how to construct useful crime maps, given police data that have already been address-matched and preprocessed by data preparers. It is estimated that the three tutorials take approximately six hours to complete in total, including exercises.

Folium makes it easy to visualize data that’s been manipulated in Python on an interactive leaflet map. It enables both the binding of data to a map for choropleth visualizations as well as passing rich vector/raster/HTML visualizations as markers on the map. These files can be used to mark the state boundaries on the map of INDIA using folium library and the CSV also contains the state data and how to use it in our notebooks. I have used it in one of my kernels which can be viewed.

The library has a number of built-in tilesets from OpenStreetMap, Mapbox, and Stamen, and supports custom tilesets with Mapbox or Cloudmade API keys. folium supports both Image, Video, GeoJSON, and TopoJSON overlays. Due to extensible functionalities I find folium the best map plotting library in python. Do give it a try and use it in your kernels.

GeoJSON file containing India state borders along with their non-spatial attributes (id, name, etc) for use in Plotly Choropleth maps.

In June 2022, Thailand legalized recreational cannabis. Currently, cannabis is now the most consumed drug. Cannabis usage can increase inflammatory responses in the respiratory tract. Sharing of cannabis waterpipes has been linked to increased tuberculosis risks. Using a national in-patient databank, we aimed to 1) describe the spatiotemporal correlation between cannabis-related and tuberculosis hospital admissions, and 2) compare the rate of subsequent pulmonary tuberculosis admission between those with prior admissions for cannabis-related causes and those without. Both admission types were aggregated to the number of admissions in monthly and provincial units. Temporal and spatial patterns were visualized using line plots and choropleth maps, respectively. A matched cohort analysis was conducted to compare the incidence density rate of subsequent tuberculosis admission and the hazard ratio. Throughout 2017–2022, we observed a gradual decline in tuberculosis admissions, in contrast to the increase in cannabis-related admissions. Both admissions shared a hotspot in Northeastern Thailand. Between matched cohorts of 6,773 in-patients, the incidence density rate per 100,000 person–years of subsequent tuberculosis admissions was 267.6 and 165.9 in in-patients with and without past cannabis-admission, respectively. After adjusting for covariates, we found that a cannabis-related admission history was associated with a hazard ratio of 1.48 (P = 0.268) for subsequent tuberculosis admission. Our findings failed to support the evidence that cannabis consumption increased pulmonary tuberculosis risk. Other study types are needed to further assess the association between cannabis consumption and pulmonary tuberculosis.

Synthetic populations for regions of the World (SPW) | Jordan

Dataset information

A synthetic population of a region as provided here, captures the people of the region with selected demographic attributes, their organization into households, their assigned activities for a day, the locations where the activities take place and thus where interactions among population members happen (e.g., spread of epidemics).

License

CC-BY-4.0

Acknowledgment

This project was supported by the National Science Foundation under the NSF RAPID: COVID-19 Response Support: Building Synthetic Multi-scale Networks (PI: Madhav Marathe, Co-PIs: Henning Mortveit, Srinivasan Venkatramanan; Fund Number: OAC-2027541).

Contact information

Henning.Mortveit@virginia.edu

Identifiers

Statistics

Sources

Files description

Base data files (jor_data_v_0_9.zip)

Derived data files

Validation and measures files

Synthetic populations for regions of the World (SPW) | Delhi

Dataset information

A synthetic population of a region as provided here, captures the people of the region with selected demographic attributes, their organization into households, their assigned activities for a day, the locations where the activities take place and thus where interactions among population members happen (e.g., spread of epidemics).

License

CC-BY-4.0

Acknowledgment

This project was supported by the National Science Foundation under the NSF RAPID: COVID-19 Response Support: Building Synthetic Multi-scale Networks (PI: Madhav Marathe, Co-PIs: Henning Mortveit, Srinivasan Venkatramanan; Fund Number: OAC-2027541).

Contact information

Henning.Mortveit@virginia.edu

Identifiers

Statistics

Sources

Files description

Base data files (ind_140001944_data_v_0_9.zip)

Derived data files

Validation and measures files

This dataset contains a comprehensive collection of geographic shapefiles representing the boundaries of countries and territories worldwide. The shapefiles define the outlines of each nation and are based on the most recent and accurate geographical data available. The dataset includes polygon geometries that accurately represent the territorial extent of each country, making it suitable for various geographical analyses, visualizations, and spatial applications.

Content: The dataset comprises shapefiles in the ESRI shapefile format (.shp) along with associated files (.shx, .dbf, etc.) that contain the attributes of each country, such as country names, ISO codes, and other relevant information. The polygons in the shapefiles correspond to the land boundaries of each nation, enabling precise mapping and spatial analysis.

Use Cases: This dataset can be utilized in a wide range of applications, including but not limited to:

• Creating choropleth maps to visualize and analyze various socio-economic indicators by country.
• Conducting spatial analysis to study population distribution, territorial areas, and geographic trends.
• Performing geopolitical research and country-level comparisons.
• Integrating with other datasets to enrich geographic analyses and insights.

Source: The shapefile data is sourced from reputable and authoritative geographic databases, ensuring its accuracy and reliability for diverse applications.

Synthetic populations for regions of the World (SPW) | Manipur

Dataset information

A synthetic population of a region as provided here, captures the people of the region with selected demographic attributes, their organization into households, their assigned activities for a day, the locations where the activities take place and thus where interactions among population members happen (e.g., spread of epidemics).

License

CC-BY-4.0

Acknowledgment

This project was supported by the National Science Foundation under the NSF RAPID: COVID-19 Response Support: Building Synthetic Multi-scale Networks (PI: Madhav Marathe, Co-PIs: Henning Mortveit, Srinivasan Venkatramanan; Fund Number: OAC-2027541).

Contact information

Henning.Mortveit@virginia.edu

Identifiers

Statistics

Sources

Files description

Base data files (ind_140001942_data_v_0_9.zip)

Derived data files

Validation and measures files

List of sociodemographic variables used in PCA analysis to create new indicators for spatial analysis.

This dataset is flattened and multicounty communities are unsplit by county lines. Flattened means that there are no overlaps; larger shapes like counties are punched out or clipped where smaller communities are contained within them. This allows for choropleth shading and other mapping techniques such as calculating unincorporated county land area. Multicounty cities like Houston are a single feature, undivided by counties. This layer is derived from Census, State of Maine, and National Flood Hazard Layer political boundaries.rnrnThe Community Layer datasets contain geospatial community boundaries associated with Census and NFIP data. The dataset does not contain personal identifiable information (PII). The Community Layer can be used to tie Community ID numbers (CID) to jurisdiction, tribal, and special land use area boundaries.rnrnA geodatabase (GDB) link is Included in the Full Data section below. The compressed file contains a collection of files that can store, query, and manage both spatial and nonspatial data using software that can read such a file. It bcontains all of the community layers/b, not just the layer for which this dataset page describes. rnThis layer can also be accessed from the FEMA ArcGIS viewer online: https://fema.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=8dcf28fc5b97404bbd9d1bc6d3c9b3cfrnrnrnCitation: FEMA's citation requirements for datasets (API usage or file downloads) can be found on the OpenFEMA Terms and Conditions page, Citing Data section: https://www.fema.gov/about/openfema/terms-conditions.rnrnFor answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the OpenFEMA program, API, and publicly available datasets, please visit: https://www.fema.gov/about/openfema/faq.rnIf you have media inquiries about this dataset, please email the FEMA News Desk at FEMA-News-Desk@fema.dhs.gov or call (202) 646-3272. For inquiries about FEMA's data and Open Government program, please email the OpenFEMA team at OpenFEMA@fema.dhs.gov.