Data Sources
Viettrace uses open administrative-boundary datasets to show Vietnam province/city boundaries before and after the July 2025 merger.
Current Data
| Dataset | Source | Use In Viettrace |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-July-2025 province/city boundaries | OSM-Boundaries, admin level 4 | The 63-province layer. |
| Post-July-2025 province/city boundaries | OSM-Boundaries, admin level 4, with historic records filtered out | The 34-province layer. |
| Display province layers | OSM-Boundaries data processed by Viettrace scripts | Removes the Truong Sa overlap from the Khanh Hoa geometry so it does not collide with the offshore-islands layer. |
| Hoang Sa and Truong Sa | geoBoundaries ADM2 | Separate offshore-islands reference layer, not merged into the province/city datasets. |
| Pre-July-2025 district boundaries | OSM-Boundaries, admin level 6, normalized with parent-province assignment | 695 districts visible from zoom 7+ (694 from OSM-Boundaries plus 1 research gap-fill, Hoang Sa District, with geometry copied from the geoBoundaries Hoang Sa reference for parity with the post-2025 Hoang Sa Special Zone). Served as static PMTiles on CDN. |
| Post-July-2025 ward/commune/special-zone boundaries | OSM-Boundaries, admin level 6, reconciled against the official 3,321-unit list | 3,321 wards visible from zoom 8+. Served as static PMTiles on CDN. |
Licenses And Attribution
- OpenStreetMap-derived data is attributed as “© OpenStreetMap contributors” in the map UI.
- Hoang Sa and Truong Sa data from geoBoundaries is attributed as “© geoBoundaries www.geoboundaries.org”.
- Viettrace keeps raw and processed data separate so changes can be audited and traced.
Known Limitations
- OSM-Boundaries data may not be perfectly accurate in every area.
- Hoang Sa does not have suitable admin-level-4 geometry in the current OSM-Boundaries export, so Viettrace uses a separate geoBoundaries ADM2 reference layer.
- Truong Sa geometry from the OSM-derived Khanh Hoa province feature is removed from the display layer to avoid overlap, while the original source data is preserved for audit.
- The post-2025 ward dataset is reconciled against the official 3,321-unit list; 3 units (Hoang Sa Special Zone, Quang Tri Ward, Luc Hong Commune) are research gap-fills constructed from related source geometries to reach the official count.
- Pre-2025 Hoang Sa District has no admin-level-6 geometry in the current OSM-Boundaries export, so a research gap-fill copies the geoBoundaries Hoang Sa reference geometry to make the district searchable and selectable in pre mode. This is a UX parity decision, not a boundary correction.
- A complete pre-2025 commune/ward source is not yet available. The layer will be added when a suitable source or community contribution becomes available.
Update Policy
Boundary, name, merger-metadata, and label-placement corrections should be reported through the issue template with clear evidence, location, and context before data is updated.
Report data issue