TechnicalGIS

Afghanistan GIS data sources

Region
Southern Asia
ISO 3166
AF · AFG
Sources
7
Themes
7
Last verified

Where to download GIS data for Afghanistan: 7 sources across 7 themes, led by UN OCHA and ICIMOD. 4 offer vector downloads such as Shapefile, GeoPackage or GeoJSON. 6 are under an open licence. Every link was last checked on 18 Oct 2026.

Country atlases

National and OpenStreetMap sources for Afghanistan

Boundaries & admin 2

Administrative boundary data for every country

  • Afghanistan - Subnational Administrative Boundaries (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    UN OCHA (HDX)

    Common Operational Dataset of subnational administrative boundaries with P-codes; source: Afghanistan Geodesy and Cartography Head Office (AGCHO), National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA).

    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    CC BY 3.0 IGO
    Formats
    File geodatabase, Shapefile, GeoJSON, XLSX
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • geoBoundaries administrative boundaries (opens in a new tab)

    API Cost: Free

    William & Mary geoLab

    JSON API listing every available admin level with direct download links.

    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    Varies (open; see metadata)
    Formats
    GeoJSON, Shapefile, TopoJSON
    Link
    geoboundaries.org

    Verified

Land cover 1

Land cover datasets for every country

  • Land cover of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (RLCMS) (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free with registration

    ICIMOD · Hindu Kush Himalaya region

    Annual 30 m Landsat-based land cover from ICIMOD's Regional Land Cover Monitoring System; free ICIMOD RDS login needed to download.

    • Land cover
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF
    Link
    rds.icimod.org

    Verified

Buildings 1

Building footprint data for every country

  • Buildings of Afghanistan (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HDX)

    OpenStreetMap building footprints exported by HOT and refreshed regularly.

    • Buildings
    Licence
    ODbL 1.0
    Formats
    GeoPackage, GeoParquet, Shapefile, GeoJSON, PMTiles
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

Population 2

Gridded population data for every country

  • Afghanistan - Subnational Population Statistics (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    UN OCHA (HDX)

    Common Operational Dataset of population estimates by administrative unit, joinable to the COD-AB via P-codes; source: National Statistic and Information Authority (NSIA) Afghanistan.

    • Population
    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    CC BY 3.0 IGO
    Formats
    XLSX, CSV
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • WorldPop population data – Afghanistan (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    WorldPop, University of Southampton

    100 m and 1 km gridded population counts, age/sex structure and related layers.

    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF
    Link
    hub.worldpop.org

    Verified

Transport 1

Road, rail and transport data for every country

Global datasets that cover Afghanistan

Worldwide and continental layers that include Afghanistan, useful where national data is missing, restricted or inconsistent across borders.

Boundaries & admin
Elevation / DEM
Imagery
Land cover
Buildings
Population
Census & statistics
Transport
Hydrology

Browse all 127 global datasets

Tutorials that use this kind of data

Neighbouring countries