METADATA FILE

I.  General description of data set
-----------------------------------

Name
	Administrative Units for Baltic Sea drainage basin region

Geographic Level
	Regional

Specific Area
	Baltic Sea drainage basin region

Lat/Long Region Boundaries
	NW-X:           0-E     ,       SW-X:           0-E
	NW-Y:           75-N    ,       SW-Y:           45-N
	SE-X:           40-E    ,       NE-X:           40-E
	SE-Y:           45-N    ,       NE-Y:           75-N

Infoterra Keyword(s)
	Human settlements (16000)
	Human population (14213)

Other Keyword(s)
	Municipality, county, country, towns, administrative units

Primary Data Acquisition Period
	Start Date: 1989
	End Date: 1993

Supplier
	GRID-Arendal. PO Box 1602, Myrene. N-4801 Arendal, Norway.

Contributor
	GRID-Arendal. PO Box 1602, Myrene. N-4801 Arendal, Norway.

Publication Reference
	Langaas, S. 1993.  Some Georeferenced Data Sets for use within 
		Sub-project 1; Land Use and Ecological Carrying Capacity, 
		of the Baltic Drainage Basin Project.  Technical Note. 
		GRID-Arendal. 10 pages + apps.

	Sweitzer, J., Langaas, S., and Folke, C. 1996.  Land Use and 
		Population Density in the Baltic Sea Drainage Basin: A GIS 
		database. AMBIO 25(3):191-198.

Documentation (overview)
		The Administrative Units layer is a data set of county-level 
	administrative regions, and in some cases, municipality administrative 
	regions for all countries positioned fully or partially  within the 
	Baltic Sea drainage basin.  The data was compiled from several 
	sources: the Nordic Cartographic Database (1:2,000,000 scale vector 
	database), EUROSTAT GISCO (1:3,000,000 scale vector database), 
	GRID-Warsaw (unknown scale), the Estonian Environment Information 
	Centre (1:200,000 scale vector database), the Latvian Environmental 
	Data Centre (IDRISI image with 0.0185 degree cell size), digitised 
	Lithuanian boundaries (1:600,000 paper map), Czech and Slovak 
	Republics obtained via INTERNET (SimTel).  The international 
	boundaries in the PONET layer of the Digital Chart of the World (DCW) 
	by ESRI was used for consistent spatial positioning when joining all 
	data sets.
		For some of the countries obtained from the Nordic
	Cartographic Database (i.e., Finland, Norway, and Sweden), the
	international boundaries off-shore were provided instead of the
	actual coastline for each of the countries.  If users are interested  
	in obtaining administrative unit information for only land area then
	the Land and Ocean (Coastline) coverage can be used as a clip cover 
	to get the desired output.
		All data sets were prepared individually using PC ARC/INFO.
	The one IDRISI image was converted into ARC/INFO polygon format. 
	Each data set was corrected for label errors, dangling arcs, and 
	unique internal user ID's. An item called UNIT_ID was added to the 
	coverage .PAT file.  Each administrative unit in the data set has a 
	unique UNIT_ID value.  For each country in the data set, its UNIT_ID 
	begins with a unique thousands value (e.g. Belarus is 1000 - 1999, 
	Norway is 25000 - 26999).  Some countries span multiple 1000 
	positions.  The individual data sets, when completed, were appended, 
	built for topology, and edited once again for label errors, dangling 
	arcs, sliver polygons, and unique internal user ID's.
		Due to copy right rules associated with some of the source
	data sets, we were unable to redistribute the compiled vector
	Administrative Units data set as it was first generated.  Therefore,
	we converted the polygon coverage into an IDRISI image with a 500 
	meter cell size.  The IDRISI image was vectorised back into an 
	ARC/INFO polygon coverage.  This resulted in 'new' boundary lines 
	with a saw-toothed pattern reflecting the raster cells.
		In addition to the added item UNIT_ID, eight other attributes
	were appended to the cover .PAT file.  UNIT_ID served as the bridge
	item to join the other attributes originating from an EXCEL 
	spreadsheet.  The final ADMIN500 coverage has a total of 13 
	attributes, including the four automatically generated by ARC/INFO.  
		Similar copy right issues were encountered with population
	statistics for some administrative regions.  In order to provide
	these data to the users we had to round the true values to the
	hundreds position (i.e., 500, 1100, 14900, etc.).

		
************************************************************************
Contact information
	Hugo Ahlenius                           phone:  +47-370-35650 
	UNEP/GRID-Arendal                       fax:    +47-370-35050 
	                                        e-mail: mapmaster@grida.no
	
   

II.  Detailed description of data set (members)
-----------------------------------------------

Data set type
	ArcView shape

Description
	ADMIN500 - Administrative Units

File Size
	ARC/INFO export file:  15,000 KB 

Access
	Free access, unrestricted

Copies (available sites)
	CD-ROM - being distributed by GRID-Arendal
	World Wide Web (WWW), GRID-Arendal
	   URL - http://www.grida.no/


III.  Technical information about vector data
---------------------------------------------

Source Data set
	IDRISI 500 meter Administrative Units image

Scale/Resolution
	Smallest polygon unit is 500 meters by 500 meters square

Feature Type
	Polygon

Number of Polygons
	2338

Projection Name
	Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area

Projection Parameters
	Units: meters
	Spheroid: International 1909
	Radius: 6,378,388
	Longitude of centre of projection: 20.00.00
	Latitude of centre of projection:  60.00.00
	False Easting: 0
	False Northing: 0
	

Projection boundaries
	Xmin: -1,000,000        Ymin: -1,300,000
	Xmax:  1,000,000        Ymax:  1,300,000

Attributes                     Brief description

	Area,13,13,n,6          Area of polygon
	Perimeter,13,13,n,6     Perimeter of polygon
	Admin500_,11,11,n,0     Internal coverage record value
	Admin500_id,11,11,n,0   Internal coverage polygon ID
	Unit_id,6,6,n,0         Unique administrative unit code value
	Country,25,25,c,0       Country which polygon belongs to
	Istlv_unit,25,25,c,0    First level (county) unit
	Seclv_unit,25,25,c,0    Second level (municipality) unit
	Unit_type,25,25,c,0     Aministrative unit type
	Total_pop,12,12,n,0     Total population within unit
	Urban_pop,12,12,n,0     Urban population within unit
	Rural_pop,12,12,n,0     Rural population within unit
	Date,6,6,n,0            Population source date
	
