TechnicalGIS

Democratic Republic of the Congo GIS data sources

Region
Middle Africa
ISO 3166
CD · COD
Sources
20
Themes
11
Last verified

Where to download GIS data for Democratic Republic of the Congo: 20 sources across 11 themes, led by GRID3 / Humanitarian Data Exchange and OCHA / Humanitarian Data Exchange. 12 offer vector downloads such as Shapefile, GeoPackage or GeoJSON. 17 are under an open licence. Every link was last checked on 18 Oct 2026.

Country atlases

National and OpenStreetMap sources for Democratic Republic of the Congo

Boundaries & admin 3

Administrative boundary data for every country

  • Subnational administrative boundaries (COD-AB) (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    OCHA / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Humanitarian common operational dataset of administrative boundaries for levels 0–3 with P-codes; source: Referenciel Géographique Commun.

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

    Verified

  • GRID3 Health Zones v9.0 (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    GRID3 / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Health zone and health area boundaries aligned with the national health information system.

    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoPackage
    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

Imagery 1

Satellite and aerial imagery for every country

  • Digital Earth Africa Map (opens in a new tab)

    Web viewer Cost: Free

    Digital Earth Africa · Africa

    Viewer for analysis-ready Landsat and Sentinel imagery and derived products such as water observations, cropland extent and coastlines; data are also open on AWS.

    • Imagery
    • Land cover
    • Hydrology
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF, WMS
    Link
    maps.digitalearth.africa

    Verified

Buildings 3

Building footprint data for every country

  • GRID3 settlement extents (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    GRID3 / CIESIN, Columbia University · National

    Settlement polygons classified as built-up areas, small settlement areas or hamlets, derived from building footprints and useful for microplanning.

    • Buildings
    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY-SA 4.0
    Formats
    GeoPackage
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • Copernicus Global Human Settlement Layer (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    European Commission JRC / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Country clip of GHSL built-up surface, population and degree-of-urbanisation grids derived from satellite imagery.

    • Buildings
    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • Google Open Buildings (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Google Research · Africa, Asia and Latin America

    Building footprint polygons detected from high-resolution imagery, with confidence scores and a 2.5D temporal dataset; download by S2 tile.

    • Buildings
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0 or ODbL 1.0
    Formats
    CSV, GeoJSON
    Link
    sites.research.google

    Verified

Population 5

Gridded population data for every country

  • Subnational population statistics (COD-PS) (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    OCHA Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Sex- and age-disaggregated population statistics for administrative units (reference year 2024), keyed to the COD-AB P-codes for joining to boundaries.

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

    Verified

  • WorldPop population counts 2015–2030 (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    WorldPop, University of Southampton · National

    Annual gridded estimates of people per ~100 m cell from 2015 to 2030, modelled with random forest dasymetric mapping.

    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • High Resolution Population Density Maps (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Meta Data for Good / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Roughly 30 m population density rasters derived from building detection in satellite imagery, with layers for women, men, children, youth and the elderly.

    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF, CSV
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • GRID3 Settlement Names v9.0 (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    GRID3 / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Named settlement points collected through field validation, linked to health areas.

    • Population
    • Boundaries & admin
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoPackage
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • GRID3 Gridded Population Estimates v4.4 (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    GRID3 / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Census-informed gridded population estimates at about 100 m resolution, with age and sex breakdowns where available.

    • Population
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

Census & statistics 2

Census and statistics data for every country

  • GRID3 Health Facilities v9.0 (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    GRID3 / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Geolocated health facility points compiled and validated with national ministries, with facility type and ownership attributes.

    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoPackage
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

  • GRID3 Schools v1.0 (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    GRID3 / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Geolocated school and education facility points with type and ownership attributes.

    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoPackage
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

Transport 2

Road, rail and transport data for every country

Climate & weather 1

Climate and weather data for every country

  • Rainfall indicators at subnational level (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    WFP / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Dekadal CHIRPS rainfall totals and anomalies aggregated by administrative unit from 1981, updated regularly.

    • Climate & weather
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    CSV
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

Agriculture & soils 2

Agriculture and soil data for every country

  • Livelihood zones (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    FEWS NET · National

    Livelihood zone map and shapefile describing how households obtain food and income, used for food security analysis.

    • Agriculture & soils
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Formats
    Shapefile, PDF
    Link
    fews.net

    Verified

  • iSDAsoil (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    iSDA · Africa

    Predicted soil properties such as pH, carbon, nitrogen and texture at 30 m resolution for two depths, available as cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs and a map viewer.

    • Agriculture & soils
    • Environment
    Licence
    CC BY 4.0
    Formats
    GeoTIFF
    Link
    isda-africa.com

    Verified

Environment 1

Environmental and protected area data for every country

  • Protected and conserved areas (WDPCA) (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    UNEP-WCMC and IUCN / Humanitarian Data Exchange · National

    Country extract of the World Database on Protected and Conserved Areas, including OECMs, with designation and IUCN category.

    • Environment
    Licence
    Free for non-commercial use; see UNEP-WCMC terms
    Formats
    GeoJSON, GeoPackage, CSV
    Link
    data.humdata.org

    Verified

Global datasets that cover Democratic Republic of the Congo

Worldwide and continental layers that include Democratic Republic of the Congo, useful where national data is missing, restricted or inconsistent across borders.

Boundaries & admin
Elevation / DEM
Imagery
Land cover
Buildings
Population
Census & statistics
Transport
Hydrology
Climate & weather
Agriculture & soils
Environment

Browse all 127 global datasets

Tutorials that use this kind of data

Neighbouring countries