Lake Chad Administrative and Country Boundary Polygons

Lake Chad region geospatial data covering parts of seven African countries: Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Sudan, Central African Republic, and Libya. It was developed by UNEP/GRID for the Lake Chad Commission on Sustainable Development, with source materials including the 1977 FAO/UNESCO Soil Map of the World. The dataset was published in December 1988.

Use Cases

• Analyze administrative unit boundaries from the ADMIN polygon dataset for regional governance studies.
• Map country borders and inland water bodies using the BASE and COUNTRIES polygon datasets for cartographic projects.
• Conduct overlay analysis with the soil map data referenced in the source materials for land capability assessments.
• Study the historical geographic extent of the Lake Chad region using the 1988 snapshot of country and administrative data.

Strengths

• Covers a specific region of seven countries, providing focused geographic scope.
• Based on authoritative source maps including the 1:5,000,000 scale FAO/UNESCO Soil Map of the World.
• Contains multiple thematic layers (ADMIN, BASE, COUNTRIES) for different analysis purposes.

Limitations

• Data is temporally stale, sourced from maps published between 1977 and 1988, not reflecting current conditions.
• Specific row counts, column details, and sample sizes are unavailable from the description.
• Original data format (Arc/Info Export .E00) requires specific, potentially legacy, GIS software for import.

Provenance

Source

UNEP/GRID, developed on behalf of the UNEP/Fresh Water Unit for the Lake Chad Commission.

Collection Method

Compiled from base maps including the FAO/UNESCO Soil Map of the World (1977), FAO administrative unit data, and the Rand-McNally New International Atlas (1982).

Time Range

Source materials range from 1977 to 1982; dataset publication date is December 1988.

Geography

Lake Chad region, covering parts of Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Sudan, Central African Republic, and Libya.