GADM metadata

Variable names for level 0 (country)

Variable	Type	Description
UID	Integer	Unique ID across all geometries at the highest level of subdivisions
ID_0	Integer	Unique numeric ID for level 0 (country)
GID_0	String	Preferred unique ID for level 0 (see below). ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code when available
NAME_0	String	Country Name in English

Variable names for level "i", where "i" can be 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5

Variable	Type	Description
GID_i	String	Preferred unique ID at level i. See discussion below
ID_i	Integer	Alternative unique identifies at level 1. See discussion below
NAME_i	String	Official name in latin script
VARNAME_i	String	Variant name. Alternate names in usage for the place, separated by pipes |
NL_NAME_i	String	Non-Latin name. Official name in a non-latin script (e.g. Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Korean)
HASC_i	String	HASC. A unique ID from Statoids
CC_i	String	Country code. Uniqe ID used within the country
TYPE_i	String	Administrative type in local language
ENGTYPE_i	String	Administrative type in English (following commonly used translations)
VALIDFR_i	String	Valiid From. Date from which data is known to have started. default: Unknown. Format is YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM or YYYY
VALIDTO_i	String	Valid To. Date at which data is no longer valid. default: Present or Current. Format is YYYY-MM-DD or YYYY-MM or YYYY
REMARKS_i	String	Comments about edits, relevant to history. For example "This is a split from Matam region."

An important note on IDs

GADM has always had multiple unique IDs associated with a record. In the future there will be only be the GID and associated tables that link the GID to other ID systems such as ISO, FIPS, and HASC. The GID starts with the three letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code. If there are subdivisions these are identified by a number from 1 to n, where n is the number of subdivisions at level 1. This value is concatenated with the country code, using a dot to delimit the two. For example, AFG.1, AFG.2, ..., AFG.n. If there are second level subdivisions, numeric codes are assigned within each first level subdivision and these are concatenated with the first level identifier, using a dot as delimiter. For example, AFG.1.1, AFG.1.2, AFG.1.3, ..., and AFG.2.1, AFG.2.2, .... And so forth for the third, fourth and fifth levels. Finally there is an underscore followed by a version number appended to the code. For example, AFG.3_1 and AFG.3.2_1. The GID codes are presistent after version 3.6 (there were errors in the codes in version 3.4). If an area changes, for example if it splits into two new areas, two new codes will be assigned, and the old code will not be used any more. The version only changes when there is a major overhaul of the divisions in a country, for example when a whole new set of subdivsions is introduced.