Administration Level Definitions

The Small Area Data Set contains poverty and inequality data linked to subnational administrative units for various geographic levels. Geographic level codes are based on the first and second level administrative divisions of the Second Administrative Level Boundaries (SALB) Project of the United Nations. For all countries/levels that are not defined under SALB, geographic level codes correspond to hierarchal political administrative divisions.

Level 0
National-level administrative boundary.
Level 0.5
Administrative boundaries that are inferior to the first sub-national level but superior to national units (i.e., level 0). These are often super-regions that do not correspond to the common political or administrative divisions.
Level 1
Administrative boundaries of the first sub-national level.
Level 1.5
Administrative boundaries that are superior to the first sub-national level and subordinate to the second sub-national level. For example, in the West Bank and Gaza, records for 681 localities (corresponding to administrative level 2) were aggregated to form 132 spatially contiguous units which contain at minimum number of 5,000 households.
Level 2
Administrative boundaries of the second sub-national level.
Level 3
Administrative boundaries of the third sub-national level.
Level 3.5
Administrative boundaries that are superior to the third sub-national level and subordinate to the fourth sub-national level. For example in Nepal, electoral boundaries or ilakas, were redrawn so that they could be separated into their urban (municipalities) and rural (village development committees or VDC) components. When an ilaka contained one or more VDCs and a municipality, the municipality was removed from the original ilaka and considered a separate, new ilaka. When several ilaka represent one municipality, the municipality was considered as one single ilaka.
Level 4
Administrative boundaries of the fourth sub-national level.
Level 888
City-level administrative boundaries, consisting of especially high resolution data for primary cities.

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