TechnicalGIS

United Arab Emirates GIS data sources

Region
Western Asia
ISO 3166
AE · ARE
Sources
11
Themes
8
Last verified

Where to download GIS data for United Arab Emirates: 11 sources across 8 themes, led by Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre and UN OCHA. 5 offer vector downloads such as Shapefile, GeoPackage or GeoJSON. 4 are under an open licence. Every link was last checked on 18 Oct 2026.

Country atlases

National and OpenStreetMap sources for United Arab Emirates

Boundaries & admin 2

Administrative boundary data for every country

  • United Arab Emirates - 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: Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre, UAE Ministry of Cabinet Affairs.

    • 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

Buildings 1

Building footprint data for every country

  • Buildings of United Arab Emirates (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 1

Gridded population data for every country

Census & statistics 2

Census and statistics data for every country

  • Statistics Centre – Abu Dhabi (SCAD) (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    Statistics Centre – Abu Dhabi · Emirate of Abu Dhabi

    Official statistics and population figures for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

    • Census & statistics
    • Population
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Formats
    XLSX, PDF
    Link
    scad.gov.ae

    Verified

  • Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre (FCSC) (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre

    Federal statistics body (formerly FCSA); census and population statistics by emirate.

    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Link
    fcsc.gov.ae

    Not verified (site blocks automated checks) · 18 Oct 2026 (no response)

Transport 1

Road, rail and transport data for every country

  • OpenStreetMap extract – GCC States (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Geofabrik / OpenStreetMap contributors · GCC States

    Daily OSM extract covering GCC States (shared extract).

    • Transport
    • Boundaries & admin
    • Hydrology
    Licence
    ODbL 1.0
    Formats
    PBF, Shapefile
    Link
    download.geofabrik.de

    Verified

Climate & weather 1

Climate and weather data for every country

  • National Center of Meteorology (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    National Center of Meteorology (UAE)

    Official UAE weather observations, climate summaries and seismic monitoring.

    • Climate & weather
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Link
    ncm.gov.ae

    Verified

Open data portal 3

Open geospatial data portals for every country

  • Bayanat (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre

    UAE federal open data portal; most datasets are tabular statistics in CSV/XLSX with an API.

    • Open data portal
    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    Varies by dataset
    Link
    bayanat.ae

    Verified

  • Abu Dhabi Open Data Platform (opens in a new tab)

    Portal Cost: Free

    Abu Dhabi Government · Emirate of Abu Dhabi

    Emirate-level open data catalogue including some spatial datasets.

    • Open data portal
    • Census & statistics
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Formats
    CSV, XLSX, API
    Link
    data.abudhabi

    Verified

  • Dubai GeoHub open data (opens in a new tab)

    Download Cost: Free

    Dubai Municipality · Emirate of Dubai

    ArcGIS Hub open-data site with Dubai community boundaries, land use and infrastructure layers.

    • Open data portal
    • Boundaries & admin
    • Transport
    Licence
    See publisher terms
    Formats
    GeoJSON, Shapefile, CSV, API
    Link
    geohub-dubai.opendata.arcgis.com

    Verified

Global datasets that cover United Arab Emirates

Worldwide and continental layers that include United Arab Emirates, 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
Open data portal

Browse all 127 global datasets

Tutorials that use this kind of data

Neighbouring countries