Administrative Partitioning

Administrative areas may be arranged hierarchically. Partitions that represent a location in the hierarchy are named using relevant identifiers using the following scheme:

{AdminLevel1Id}-{AdminLevel2Id}-...{AdminLevelNId}

Currently, layers using this scheme are partitioned at one of two levels in the hierarchy.

1. Country level. This is always the root of the administrative hierarchy.
2. Clip level. The clip level depends on the country and is the level at which administrative polygons are guaranteed to form a polygonal partition (spanning, non-overlapping) with consistent segment-level admin coding. The clip level is the first (minimum) level for which the boundaries are polygonal and span. For example, clip-level in the United States is admin level 3 (county). In Germany, it is also level 3 (Kreis).

A layer may contain both country partitions and clip-level admin partitions.