Dears,
Although I am a inconditional admiror of Gadm, I need to say that data on Brazil is severely out of date. It does not seem to be wronge, just not up dated for a decade. Levels 0 and 1 are fine. But take for instance level 2, of municipalities. File says that Brazil has 5504 cities and it was accurate for 1997. Today, Brazil already has 5566 cities.
As for the level 3, of municipal districts, I can not say in detail. Of course the city-grouping variable is just as wronge as the level 2 file, but I do not know if the more than 10 thousand districts have changed a lot since the version of file from gadm.
While I think it would be hard to find up to date shape data on level 3 (but not impossible trough IBGE), it is probably fairly easy. I myself have data on level 2 updated for 2006 if you guys want.
Anyway, as Brasil has done a full census in 2010, I think it would be the perfect solution to contact IBGE looking for the new shapes and data for levels 2 and 3 regarding the census.
Please please, update Brazilian data as it seems to be one of the most outdated!
My best regards,
FABRICIO VASSELAI
Brazil Admin level 2 and 3 (municipalities and districts)
Hallo,
boundary files (shape) for the Admin level 2 and 3 (municipalities and districts) of Brazil can be found on the IBGE download site for geodata:
http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/download/geociencias.shtm
Just navigate through the tree as follows:
... mapas\malhas_digitais\Censo_2010\Sinopse\Arcview_Shp\SIRGAS2000\E2500\BRASIL
The 2010 municipalities (municipio) are found in the file "55MU2500GC_SIR" --> 5565 polygons
The 2010 districts (distritos) are found in the file "55DS2500GC_SIR" --> 10138 polygons
The files can be downloaded without registration. However, the license and use restrictions need to be checked, of course.
Adriano