EuroBoundaryMap

History  Dataset  Next steps  Project partners

The EuroBoundaryMap project is the activity of National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCAs), members of EuroGeographics, producing and maintaining the EuroBoundaryMap product of Europe at the scale 1:100,000.

The product development and quality assurance is managed by the Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG), Frankfurt, Germany.

For more information on the EuroBoundaryMap product, please visit the EuroBoundaryMap product pages.

History
The EuroBoundaryMap project started as the SABE project by MEGRIN in 1992 and continued when EuroGeographics was founded (as a merger between CERCO and MEGRIN).

Up to now nine versions - referring to 1991, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 - were launched, the first five starting with the acronym SABE. For purpose of harmonisation betweeen EuroGeographics products the other are called EBM v1.0, EBM v2.0, EBM v3.0 and EBM v4.0. The database has been compiled from official source data provided by Europe's NMCAs with the best available semantic quality and positional accuracy. The versions SABE91, SABE95 and SABE2001 represented the status of the national administrative units according to the census date in the involved countries while also a linkage to the statistical codes used by EUROSTAT was enabled and maintained for all further versions. According to requirements of the contract signed by Eurostat and EuroGeographics in 2005 for 4 years, BKG has also established a land-water-separation of European administrative units in the EuroBoundaryMap product. This contract has been prolonged for 2010 in December 2009.

Dataset
The current version of EuroBoundaryMap contains all administrative units from country down to the commune level of all EU members and 10 other European countries. The term "seamless" means that there are no gaps or overlaps between polygons initially derived from different sources. So contributions derived from national source data, transformed into a national database consistent with the EuroBoundaryMap specification and provided by NMCAs have been edge matched at international boundaries. They incorporate a linkage between the SHN codes of administrative units for all EU countries and the corresponding statistical codes according to the NUTS regulation issued by EUROSTAT.

The harmonization process from national contribution to EuroBoundaryMap product is controlled by a conversion procedure consisting in several steps that are documented:

• Pre-processing: validation of national contributions with regard to the requirements of the EuroBoundaryMap specification
• Transformation of coordinates from national map projection to geographic coordinates when necessary 
• Processing of geometry: harmonization with neighbouring countries, derivation of geometry on national upper administrative levels (USE-Regions) and geometry of NUTS-Regions for EU27
• Quality control of final product 

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Future product improvement and next steps
EuroGeographics supports the regular maintenance and extension of the EuroBoundaryMap project according to the customer requirements. BKG is keen to deliver the EuroBoundaryMap product in a high quality based on a very close cooperation with national data suppliers, the NMCAs of Europe. Further it supports EuroGeographics efforts for further harmonisation of all their products and delivers input also for other projects.

Since 2001 the maintenance of the EuroBoundaryMap product is based on the EuroBoundaryMap Project Agreement, which has been signed by 36 NMCAs up to now. The purpose of this agreement is to enable EuroGeographics to create and distribute the EuroBoundaryMap product and to allow its continuing development according to the requirements of the market. In addition to customers from private, public and academic sector, in particular European Environment Agency (EEA) and Eurostat belong to the users of EBM of many years, so for instance EuroBoundaryMap is an essential part of the Geographic Information System of the European Commission (GISCO).

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EuroBoundaryMap Project Partners

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