Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística

About the publication - 2018

The files of this release represent the municipal political-administrative division of Brazil, aggregated into four territorial units described below, according to the political-administrative structure in force on April 30, 2018, reference date to receive territorial changes coming from state bodies in charge of the political-administrative division.

In 2018, the Digital Municipal Mesh of Brazil comprises 5,572 geocodes, being:

• 5,568 Municipalities;
• 1 Federal District (Brasília - DF);
• 1 State District (Fernando de Noronha - PE);
• 2 Operational State Areas (Lagoa dos Patos and Lagoa Mirim, both attributed to Rio Grande do Sul).

The products described here present the following territorial units: Municipalities, Microregions, Mesoregions and Federation Units separated into file directories by FU or in unified files for Brazil in the respective territorial units, with the BR prefix, under the following pattern of file nomenclature:

Where: 
XX - Corresponds to the two-digit FU geocode, according to the following table. 
BR - Unification at Brazil level in Municipalities, Microregions, Mesoregions and Federation Units. 
E250 - Minimal precision compatible with the 1:250,000 scale. 
GC - Geographic projection - LAT/LONG. 
SIR - Geodetic Reference System - SGR SIRGAS 2000.

Each file has attributes according to what is described below:

File: XXMUE250GC_SIR

File: XXMIE250GC_SIR

File: XXMEE250GC_SIR

File: XXUFE250GC_SIR

Apart the files separated by FU, this release has files unified for Brazil for the related territorial units, including the BR prefix in the pattern of file nomenclature.

The cartographic bases made available are compatible with the original scale of work - 1:250,000, without point suppression, according to technical criteria pre-established by IBGE/DGC/CETE.

The reference system used was the Geocentric Reference System for the Americas- SIRGAS2000, according to the President Resolution no. 1/2005, available on: http://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/metodos_e_outros_documentos_de_referencia/normas/rpr_01_25fev2005.pdf

The text coding for the files is the UTF-8.

Evolution of the Municipal Meshes

Since its establishment by Decree-Law no. 311, of March 2, 1938, the Political-Administrative Division of Brazil - DPA is one of the most dynamic in the western countries.

The Digital Municipal Mesh of Brazil is produced by the Coordination of Territorial Structures- CETE of the Directorate of Geosciences - DGC, based on the "Graphic Municipal File - AGM" project, aimed at transcribing the laws that created and changed the DPA in the topographic mapping sheets produced in the 1970s and 1980s, in the best scale possible, recovering the Brazilian territory.

Legal Considerations:

The IBGE digital municipal mesh aims at: "Representing the Brazilian political-administrative division as close as possible, providing the IBGE with the administrative boundaries to accomplish its institutional mission".

Although the IBGE´s municipal mesh is currently used as a reference for a number of activities and by a number of public and private bodies and the society in general, the IBGE is not in charge of establishing and plotting territorial boundaries.

Considerations on the Updating

The digital municipal mesh is published on an annual basis, including the political-administrative representation of the states and municipalities practiced by the IBGE in order to produce statistical data.

The population estimates annually produced by the IBGE take into account the updated Political-Administrative Division, whose dynamics reflects the territorial changes occurred in the municipality boundaries, in the scope of the technical cooperation agreements maintained by the IBGE with State Bodies in charge of this matter and/or with the Legislative Assemblies. The changes received by the IBGE after April 30 are included in the Municipal Mesh of the following year, bearing in mind the minimal time needed to process this information in the Territorial Base and other IBGE registries.

The product portrays the current situation of the Political-Administrative Division, by means of the vector representation of the state boundaries and municipal borders, always prioritizing the legal descriptions, references, delineations and contours through the use of new inputs and the most recent geo-technologies available at the IBGE.

Considerations on the Limitations of the Mesh Use

The Digital Municipal Mesh reflects the IBGE effort in geometrically representing the Political-Administrative Division in a scenario that includes outdated legislation, legal omissions, proxies, disputes and lack of up-to-date cartographic inputs and in a detailed scale.

In general, the boundaries in the digital municipal mesh should be assumed as proxy boundaries. The precision of the outline will depend on a number of factors, such as the completeness of the legislation, type of feature, graphical quality and availability of up-to-date cartography or resolution of the orbital image or orthophotos. The following cases should be highlighted, requiring attention to the correct use of the mesh:

1) Borders based on hydrography using the terms: "thalweg", "riverbed", "up" or "down" the river - Such situations cause problems in the materialization of the outline, either due to the ignorance of the exact places where the boundary passes on the river or due to geometric problems in the representation of a continuous mesh. There are no records of the definition of the deepest outline of the river (thalweg) at the time of the edition of the laws. It is common to be difficult to establish the original riverbed in damming areas.

2) Sinuous rivers or regions with constant hydrographic changes - The cartographic updating and the land definition of properties can be jeopardized by natural and artificial changes in the river course, as well as by the production scale of the municipal mesh;

3) Water divisor in plain regions - The representation of the borderline is compatible with the best scale of the official document available in the region, though it may not be the most appropriate to establish the details in the terrain;

4) Dry outlines whose vertexes are not established by milestones or whose coordinates are not known within the current parameters of precision - It is also common to have laws that establish borders by means of landforms or prominent points of difficult identification, not materialized by milestones and not described by coordinates.

5) Astronomical outlines of any type (having at least the requirement asked on item 4) - Laws that establish borders by means of the description of coordinates without a reference system.                                                

6) Straight lines that cross urbanized areas - Laws that establish outdated borders, due to the occurrence of several territorial changes and urban expansion.

7) Borders - whose legislation or description do not describe features identifiable in official cartographic products and whose precision is not compatible with the demand under analysis.

8) Urbanized Areas - certain stretches of borders that cross urbanized areas with high density of buildings can be adjusted aiming at enabling field surveys.

9) The coastline - represented in this mesh aims at IBGE surveys, not having any physical validity - no studies for tide lines, scope or extension of typical indentations of our coastline (bays, estuaries, lagoons, deltas) or even river and sea erosion –, i.e., it should not be used for any economic purpose.

As a direct and indirect consequence of the above items:

• The IBGE is not responsible for establishing the ownership of any isle located in rivers, lagoons, lakes, bays, estuaries or ocean whose political-administrative subordination is not established in the legislation, following hierarchical criteria at federal and state level.
• The IBGE is not responsible for establishing the ownership or political-administrative subordination of urban/rural properties, pipelines, plants, airports, antennas, oil/gas wells, mining areas, towers of wind farms, toll stations, tax service stations and any other commercial or industrial building or installation.

For all the cases mentioned above, any disagreement in relation to the municipal mesh provided by the IBGE should be directed:

- To the State Body in charge of the political-administrative division in the state.

- To the Ministry of Foreign Relations - Brazilian International Boundary Commissions for those involving International Border.

Lastly, the dividing lines have minimal detailing compatible with the 1:250,000 scale, without generalization or suppression of points.

As a result of the established scenario, the IBGE recognizes the use of the municipal mesh for the production of statistics, with the exception of the limitations informed in this document.