Can you explain how to read this table?  What do the Level 0-x columns actually mean?  Does that translate to Country, State, City, etc.?  And what's the difference between "administrative" versus "postal code" in terms of those columns?  Just having a large table of Y's without knowing what the columns mean isn't very helpful...

As you can well imagine, having a consistent naming convention across the entire world is not possible. As such, this is how shapes are defined by many map vendors.

'Administrative boundaries' is a generic description for the different states, provinces, counties, boroughs, suburbs and regions found in each country. Some countries have 1 level of boundary, other have 5. It differs across the world. Its impossible to call them all the same name when they are different in each country.

Postal codes - or 'zip codes' in the US - are different to states or counties etc. Again, there are multiple levels, which operate differently depending on which country you are in - so its impossible to give a more specific description to each item. Generally, the higher levels work off fewer keys (like 'EC' in the UK), while the lower levels provide more details with more keys (EC1A).

The table is useful for people trying to understand what, at a summary level, the shape coverage is in the mapping tools across the globe without enumerating each and every element by country, which would run into well over 500k items.

Granted.  But given that, how do I interpret the row for the US where it indicates 3 administrative levels and 2 post code levels?  Does that mean Country/State/City for the administrative boundaries and then State/Postal Code for the post code levels?  Or something else?  Just trying to figure out how to interpret the information here so that we can answer questions that users have with regards to what they can expect to work (or not work) when dealing with maps...

There is no easy way to convey this information for the entire list. At best, we can explain the details for given countries on as needed basis. 

For you, in the US, its country, state, county. Post codes are 2 digit than 5 digit. Cities are not included here because there are generally no shapes for a city - only long/lat center points.

Avi Perez Okay, thanks.

Hi do you have the latest list and in in text file? Thank you