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Boundary & Administrative Data

Natural Earth Countries

Natural Earth is usually the first stop for free country boundary downloads because it is public domain, globally consistent, and simple to use.

Format Shapefile / GeoJSON
Coverage Global
Resolution 1:10m / 1:50m / 1:110m
License Public Domain
Update Versioned releases

Format

Shapefile / GeoJSON

Geometry

Polygon

Coverage

Global

Resolution

1:10m / 1:50m / 1:110m

About this dataset

Public-domain global country boundaries and related admin layers for lightweight GIS basemaps and downloads.

Download free Natural Earth country boundary data with direct links, global coverage, and GIS-friendly formats for maps and reference layers.

Country boundary maps Reference basemaps Fast global demos

How to download

  1. 1 Open the Natural Earth downloads page.
  2. 2 Choose the target scale such as 1:10m for the most detailed global version.
  3. 3 Open the Cultural section and choose the desired boundary layer.
  4. 4 Download the zip archive, extract the shapefile, and open it locally.

FAQ

Is Natural Earth good for quick global maps?

Yes. Natural Earth is ideal when you need lightweight global boundaries without registration or complex extraction steps.

Does Natural Earth offer GeoJSON?

The official downloads focus on shapefiles, while GeoJSON-friendly mirrors and repositories exist for web-oriented workflows.