You could try using OpenStreetMap's system of administrative boundaries, which does a reasonable job of characterizing equivalent levels of administration across different countries.
They use a hierarchy of even-numbered admin levels (countries = level 2, states/provinces = 4, counties/districts = 6, municipalities = 8, etc), where the odd-numbered levels are used only in countries where the hierarchy system doesn't fit the general rule. The OSM boundary=administrative tag is described here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary%3Dadministrative <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:boundary=administrative> Mapzen has extracted all the shapes here: https://mapzen.com/data/borders/ <https://mapzen.com/data/borders/> Alan
_______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org
