{ "title": "Stock Africa cartographic reference data", "schema_version": 1, "natural_earth_repository_release": "v5.1.2", "natural_earth_release_commit": "f1890d9f152c896d250a77557a5751a93d494776", "source_artifact_last_commit": "117488dc884bad03366ff727eca013e434615127", "source_artifact_last_commit_date": "2022-05-05", "source_artifact_last_commit_description": "v5.1.0 packaging (GeoJSON unchanged in the v5.1.2 repository release)", "retrieved_date": "2026-09-20", "license": { "name": "Public domain", "url": "https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/", "attribution": "Made with Natural Earth." }, "sources": { "map_units_10m": { "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/f1890d9f152c896d250a77557a5751a93d494776/geojson/ne_10m_admin_0_map_units.geojson", "repository_url": "https://github.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/blob/f1890d9f152c896d250a77557a5751a93d494776/geojson/ne_10m_admin_0_map_units.geojson", "sha256": "57da82be755f4afccd8f3b14251bb2752f5df1395f47d2d86f817470c4a48862", "bytes": 13526439 }, "land_110m": { "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/f1890d9f152c896d250a77557a5751a93d494776/geojson/ne_110m_land.geojson", "repository_url": "https://github.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/blob/f1890d9f152c896d250a77557a5751a93d494776/geojson/ne_110m_land.geojson", "sha256": "9e0729ee253ca7d7a5c4ae9395fb1902264c5377c52e224d13dd85010e2835d9", "bytes": 138160 } }, "geometry_policy": "Source coordinates and geometries retained exactly. No dissolving, merging, simplifying, rounding, redrawing or polygon omission within selected features.", "scope": { "rule": "REGION_UN equals Africa, excluding GU_A3 ATF, HMD and IOT. CONTINENT is not used because Natural Earth assigns some African island states to Seven seas (open ocean).", "feature_count": 62, "country_count": 54, "selection_count": 60, "country_iso_a2": [ "AO", "BF", "BI", "BJ", "BW", "CD", "CF", "CG", "CI", "CM", "CV", "DJ", "DZ", "EG", "ER", "ET", "GA", "GH", "GM", "GN", "GQ", "GW", "KE", "KM", "LR", "LS", "LY", "MA", "MG", "ML", "MR", "MU", "MW", "MZ", "NA", "NE", "NG", "RW", "SC", "SD", "SL", "SN", "SO", "SS", "ST", "SZ", "TD", "TG", "TN", "TZ", "UG", "ZA", "ZM", "ZW" ], "included_context": [ "Western Sahara", "Somaliland", "Bir Tawil", "Mayotte", "Réunion", "Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha" ], "exclusions": { "ATF": "French Southern and Antarctic Lands span remote subantarctic islands; omitted as a complete source feature.", "HMD": "Heard Island and McDonald Islands are remote subantarctic dependencies.", "IOT": "Chagos / British Indian Ocean Territory lies outside this African map scope. The source is historical; no present-day status assertion is made." }, "other_exclusions": "Natural Earth places Spain (including Canary Islands and north African enclaves) and Madeira outside REGION_UN Africa. These remain in noninteractive global land context, not the country catalogue." }, "fields": { "id": "Stable Natural Earth NE_ID prefixed ne-. Also the GeoJSON feature id.", "status": "Product display category. country and subdivision participate in the 54-country selection groups; disputed, territory and indeterminate are separately listed source-defined map units.", "selection_id": "Shared interaction key; country:SO joins remaining Somalia and Puntland; country:TZ joins Tanzania and Zanzibar without changing their geometries. Other context features retain individual feature keys.", "country_iso_a2": "Parent African country for grouping, or null for separately listed context features. Somaliland is not silently merged into Somalia.", "iso_a2": "Source ISO field with -99 represented by null. Réunion FR-974 normalized to RE, Mayotte FR-976 normalized to YT. Subdivisions keep null source ISO and use parent-country grouping fields.", "label": "Natural Earth LABEL_X, LABEL_Y as longitude, latitude. Cartographic label anchor, not a legal capital or calculated centroid.", "source_type": "Unmodified Natural Earth TYPE; preserved alongside the display category.", "context": "Unmodified nonempty NOTE_ADM0 and NOTE_BRK joined with semicolon. Historical source notes, not independently updated geopolitical assertions." }, "name_normalization": { "CPV": "Cabo Verde", "CIV": "Côte d’Ivoire", "SWZ": "Eswatini", "STP": "São Tomé and Príncipe", "SAH": "Western Sahara", "SHN": "Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha" }, "boundary_interpretation": "Natural Earth uses a de facto cartographic view. Its Morocco geometry extends into Western Sahara; the Western Sahara map unit represents the separate area in that source. Somaliland remains separate. Displayed geometry is not a statement of recognition or a current legal jurisdiction model. Preserve these distinctions in both flat and globe views.", "fit_guidance": "Do not fit every raw feature extent for the default Africa overview: South Africa includes Prince Edward Islands; Saint Helena includes Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; Mauritius includes Rodrigues and other outlying islands. Keep complete geometry but choose an Africa overview extent separately, and offer selection/search for small islands.", "counts": { "africa_coordinate_pairs": 57019, "world_features": 127, "world_coordinate_pairs": 5143 }, "verification": [ "All 54 expected African country groups present", "All five small sovereign island-country groups present", "62 unique Natural Earth feature ids", "Geometry JSON identical to selected pinned source features", "Somalia/Puntland and Tanzania/Zanzibar share selection keys", "Western Sahara, Somaliland and Bir Tawil remain distinct features", "Finite source label anchors and complete feature bounding boxes" ], "artifacts": { "africa-map-units.geojson": { "bytes": 1275991, "gzip_bytes": 468131, "sha256": "e2c22c38ea94bf0f7f03bc0e6d571f9aebbc6b315a5fb0203cc95cf1d4053035" }, "world-land.geojson": { "bytes": 134081, "gzip_bytes": 50626, "sha256": "1d3ae9f791a647c0a5dac84aae32ecaaa05529a800d5f4b8e25c58c60261b32f" }, "africa-map-catalogue.json": { "bytes": 13824, "gzip_bytes": 2438, "sha256": "03f734d7cd880e7cf0b7367d68b0cf22d87714faef70abf4b1f10bdfbd2861ac" } } }