RELEASE OF THE GLOBAL MAP DATA SET VERSION 1
K. Nakagawa 3 , S. Kajikawa 3 , H.fujimura 3 , S. Sakabe 6
3 Geographical Survey Institute, 1 Kitasato Tsukuba Ibaraki 305-0811, Japan
(k-nakagawa, kajikawa, hfu)@gsi.gojp
b Infrastructure Development Institute, New Kojimachi Bldg 5-3-23 Tokyo 102-0083, Japan
5bu00@idi.orjp
KEYWORDS: Global, Environment, International, Cooperation, Mapping, Project, Digital,
Framework-Data,
ABSTRACT:
Global Map is global digital framework geographic information. 179 countries and regions
participate with the project to develop the Global Map and over 96 % of whole land areas of the
earth are included in the project. The first version of the Global Map data set has released by June,
2008.
Global Map consists of eight layers, namely, boundaries, drainage, transportation, population
centers, elevation, land-cover, land-use and vegetation. The scale of Global Map is 1 to 1 million or
1 km resolution. The former four layers are provided by vector format and the latter four layers are
provided as raster images.
For monitoring and evaluation of the global environment issues, the data have to be updated
continuously. Therefore, the Global Map is planed to update in every five years.
1. Introduction
The Global Map is a digital geographic data set
covering almost whole land area of the earth. In 1992,
Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and
“Agenda 21” was adopted as an action program for
addressing global environment problems. Agenda 21
says various kinds of information are essential for
decision making to realize sustainable development.
In response to this program, the Ministry of
Construction of Japan has proposed concept of global
map and preparation works to launch the Global
Mapping Project has been started. In 1996,
International Steering Committee for Global Mapping
(ISCGM) was established in order to promote the
project. Actual works to develop Global Map data
started in 1998 in a few countries which have already
participated to the project. Currently 179 countries
and regions participate the project and most of them
have released Global Map version 1 by June 2008.
This paper briefly summarizes the Global Mapping
Project and introduces the Global Map version 1.
2. Participants
The Global Mapping Project is being promoted by
voluntary participation of national mapping
organizations and regional geographic information
organizations in the world. In 1998, ISCGM called for
participation to the project to the National Mapping
Organizations around the world with a letter of
Director of department of statistics, UN. After that, the
Secretariat of ISCGM was continuing the calling to
the un-participating countries and regions. These
approaches are continued still now. As a result of these
activities, the number of participating countries and
