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Mapbox Countries v1

This tileset reference document includes information to help you use the data in the Mapbox Countries v1 tileset.

Overview

Mapbox Countries v1 is a free, Mapbox-provided vector tileset of high resolution country polygons derived from the Mapbox Boundaries product. Any Mapbox user can use the tileset for use cases like creating country masks or choropleth data visualizations.

The tileset includes vector polygon features for all countries and territories defined in the ISO 3166-1 country code standard, including alternate worldviews for flexibility in how claimed international boundaries are displayed for a regional audience.

Boundary feedback
The country boundaries tileset is a subset of the Mapbox Boundaries product. To provide feedback on boundary issues, contact our Support team. To get access to more boundary levels, contact our Sales team.

Data sources

Data in the Mapbox Countries tileset is based on information obtained from officially recognized local or international entities.

Layer reference

This tileset contains one layer with polygon features and metadata.

country_boundaries

markerpolylinepolygonmin zoom level: 0buffer: 4

This layer contains the boundary polygons representing all countries and territories with a unique ISO 3166-1 code.

Territory typeFeature count
Countries disputed='false'251
Disputed areas disputed='true'41

These polygons complement the mapbox-streets-v8 tileset, which contains associated land and maritime boundary lines and point labels for each country.

feature id number

The integer feature ID is the integer primary key for each feature and corresponds to the Mapbox Boundaries v3 IDs.

Using names or ISO 3166-1 codes as feature IDs
For practical purposes like data joins, it may be convenient to use any of the other available properties as the feature ID. To achieve this in Mapbox GL JS, you set the promoteId parameter when adding the vector tile source to the map.

mapbox_id text

The globally unique Mapbox ID is the alphanumeric primary key for each feature and corresponds to the Mapbox Boundaries v4 IDs.

disputed text

Countries recognized in the ISO 3166-1 standard have a value of 'false' while overlay polygons of disputed areas have a value of 'true'.

We suggest styling disputed boundary polygons with disputed='true' as a separate style layer. Use a fill-opacity value to make it semi transparent or otherwise distinct style from non-disputed areas.

This example GL filter expression can be used to only display country polygons without any disputed areas:

[
"==",
["get", "disputed"],
"false"
]

worldview text

The vector tiles contain multiple versions of some boundaries, each with a worldview value indicating the intended audience. It is important to apply a worldview filter to all your style layers to avoid showing conflicting and overlapping boundaries.

This example GL filter expression builds on the disputed area expression to display all disputed='false' country boundaries matching a worldview for either US or all audiences:

[
"all",
[
"==",
["get", "disputed"],
"false"
],
[
"any",
[
"==",
"all",
["get", "worldview"]
],
[
"in",
"US",
["get", "worldview"]
]
]
]

Refer to the Mapbox Boundaries worldview documentation for available worldviews.

iso_3166_1 text

The iso_3166_1 property contains the ISO 3166-1 (Alpha-2 code) code of the boundary. These match the 249 officially assigned country codes in the ISO 3166-1 standard and the following two unofficial codes:

  • XK Kosovo
  • XS Sovereign Base Areas (Akrotiri and Dhekelia)

For disputed area polygons with disputed='true', the code is in the D0<ISO><ISO><Number> format, which indicates the iso_3166_1 code of the two or more countries involved in the disputed claim.

iso_3166_1_alpha_3 text

The associated ISO 3166-1 (Alpha-3 code) as per ISO 3166 except for:

  • XKS Kosovo
  • XSB Sovereign Base Areas (Akrotiri and Dhekelia)
  • Not available for disputed areas

wikidata_id text

The unique QID of the associated country in the Wikidata Database. This can be used to query the associated Wikidata item for translated country names and various other open data attributes.

name text

The local name for the country. Countries with multiple local languages may have local names separated by a hyphen.

name_en text

The commonly used English name for the country.

For displaying map labels, it is recommended to use the point labels available in the place_label layer of the mapbox-streets-v8 tileset.

region text

Region name for the country as defined in the UN M49 standard.

subregion text

Sub-region name for the country as defined in the UN M49 standard.

color_group number

A number between 1-6 assigned so that no adjacent countries have the same number. This can be used in an expression for creating a standard multi-color world political map.

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