Boundaries

What is Mapbox Boundaries?

Mapbox Boundaries is an expertly curated set of global boundary data that allows you to add boundaries to your maps, dashboards, and data visualizations. Mapbox Boundaries consists of multiple data layers that come cartographically-matched, georeferenced, and processed as a Mapbox vector tileset ready for integration with your maps and data.

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Why should I use Mapbox Boundaries?

Mapbox Boundaries makes your maps more useful by enabling you to interact with world polygons, adding valuable context to your maps and supporting comprehensive analysis. This added coverage can help:

• A sales team visualizing revenue by US state to determine territories.
• A real estate firm counting POIs by US zip code to build a “livability” index.
• A regional disaster response center using city and county boundaries to determine jurisdiction for emergency response.
• A utility or energy company visualizing and assessing localities affected by transmission infrastructure planning.
• A business intelligence platform wanting to help their customers do any of the above and more around the world.

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What boundary data types are available?

There are currently five data types in Mapbox Boundaries:

• Administrative: Divisions within a country or territory delineated for the purpose of general administration. These usually have a capital and some type of government of their own, with the power to set laws and collect taxes throughout the division.
• Legislative: Constituency areas for various types of legislative assemblies or regional councils. Typically voters elect a single representative to a larger body from each of these areas.
• Locality: These are types of places that do not necessarily represent any official boundaries, but are nonetheless commonly used as definitions of “place.”
• Postal: These are approximate areas of mail delivery based on national postal code systems.
• Statistical: These are non-administrative boundaries that are most commonly used for statistical purposes. These might be officially defined by a governmental statistical bureau, or historical administrative boundaries that are still relevant for statistical uses (e.g. Census blocks in the US).

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Where is Mapbox Boundaries available?

Mapbox Boundaries is a world wide, curated data product that covers everything from Chinese prefectures and Japanese 7-digit postal codes to French arrondissements and US neighborhoods. Exact coverage varies by country and we encourage you to explore the Mapbox Boundaries country explorer to see all of the data available to you.

Additionally, Mapbox Boundaries has worldviews for Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and a US / International audiences, so you can provide localized context for data to your customers wherever they do business.

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How do I use Mapbox Boundaries?

Follow this getting started guide to begin building maps with Mapbox Boundaries.

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What are some of the key capabilities of Mapbox Boundaries?

Mapbox Boundaries facilitates data driven decision making by enabling you to join custom data with boundary polygons. The data product also allows you to visualize your data by areas such as country, region, sub-region, or post code to unlock insights within your own application. You can:

• Group and aggregate statistics by any type of boundary, including easy drill down, with Data-Joins.
• Match point features — any longitude & latitude — to any boundary from our Tilequery API.
• Extend Mapbox Boundaries with any custom polygons you need for your application.

Here is an example that demonstrates how a user can aggregate point data into polygon hierarchies (using the data join technique and the Tile Query API) to analyze hospital charges in the US - all rendered through an interactive map with GL JS.

What format are the boundaries available?

All of our Boundaries are available via Mapbox vector tiles or in flat file GeoJSON format.

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What metadata attributes are included with Mapbox Boundaries polygons?

Please refer to the feature lookup tables that can be found in our Mapbox Boundaries getting started guide.

How do I buy Mapbox Boundaries?

Great question! Talk to our sales team or your Mapbox representative.

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How can a user add the Mapbox Boundaries layers to a style in Studio?

To add Mapbox Boundaries to a map style in Mapbox Studio, select the “Add Layer” button and view the “Sources” tab. Next, add the desired tilesets as a layer within a map by selecting specific boundary tilesets from the list of Mapbox Boundaries tilesets. Access to the Mapbox Boundaries tilesets is controlled by your Mapbox account access token. If you would like a trial of Boundaries, please contact our sales team

How much does Mapbox Boundaries cost?

Mapbox Boundaries is available as part of an annual subscription plan. For specific pricing quotes, please talk to our sales team or your Mapbox representative.

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Are there any licensing or usage restrictions for Mapbox Boundaries?

Yes. Boundaries may only be used in conjunction with a Mapbox Map, and you may not (and may not permit any third party to) trace or otherwise derive or extract content, data and/or information from Boundaries. You may only access Boundaries via the Mapbox APIs (i.e., not as a data file). Please see the Mapbox Service Terms for a complete version of our Service Terms.