Department of State
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The Office of the Geographer and Global Issues (GGI) at the U.S. Department of State produces the Large-Scale International Boundaries (LSIB) dataset. LSIB version 11.4, released February 24, 2025 is the current version of the dataset. The LSIB is the official international boundaries dataset of the U.S. government, and is recognized as a National Geospatial Data Asset and a core dataset in the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure. The LSIB is available for public download on geodata.state.gov, data.gov, and geoplatform.gov. To assist in GIS analysis and cartographic visualization, the Office of the Geographer and Global Issues also creates polygon datasets that incorporate the boundary alignment from the LSIB.
World Polygons Version 11.4 is a new collection of polygon datasets that is specifically designed to match the LSIB 11.4 dataset. The purpose of the World Polygons dataset is to enable geographic visualization, at multiple cartographic scales, which incorporates U.S. Government official international boundary alignment, cartographic styling that reflects the political status of boundaries, and country or area names used by the Department of State and other international standards. This dataset also provides a mechanism for attribute joins for the analysis and visualization of country-level information (e.g., gross domestic product or population of each country).