Published on 8 January 2024

swissBOUNDARIES3D

swissBOUNDARIES3D contains all administrative units and national boundaries of Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein in vector form. It is based on an optimised data model for Switzerland and conforms to the data of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. 

Administrative units of Switzerland

Update April 2025: three new political municipalities
The latest edition of swissBOUNDARIES^3D contains three new municipalities created through fusions of nine old municipalities.

• Canton of Ticino: Giornico, Lema, Quinto

Applications

Thanks to its simple and clearly defined data structure, swissBOUNDARIES^3D can be used for a broad variety of tasks:

• Analyses requiring a spatial reference to the administrative divisions of Switzerland
• Use in combination with other geographic data sets
• Visual background for orientation in GIS, CAD and navigation systems
• Wide-area statistical analyses and simulations
• Reference data set for the development of information systems

Terms of use

Additional information

• Technical Details

  Structure

  swissBOUNDARIES^3D comprises  5 information layers:

  • Administrative boundaries (national, cantonal, district and municipal boundaries), line geometry
  • Administrative base units (e.g. municipalities), surface geometry (polygons)
  • Districts, surface geometry (polygons)
  • Cantons, surface geometry (polygons)
  • National territories, surface geometry (polygons)

  To produce the third dimension, the administrative boundaries were projected on to the digital elevation model swissALTI^3D. The lines and contours are therefore geometrically specified as three-dimensional points (x, y, z).

  The swissBOUNDARIES^3D perimeter includes Switzerland, the Principality of Liechtenstein and the exclaves in neighbouring countries. In addition to political municipalities, areas such as the State Forest of Galm, lakes and other common areas larger than 5 km² which are not assigned to a specific municipality are also designated as independent surfaces.

  File formats

  swissBOUNDARIES^3D is available in the following data formats:

  • ESRI File Geodatabase
  • ESRI Shapefile
  • GeoPackage
  • DXF (please order data by email at [e-mail])
  • Interlis 2

  Coordinate systems

  • LV95 LN02

  Updating

  Updating is based on information provided by the Cadastral Survey (CS) and the Federal Statistical Office. swissBOUNDARIES^3D is always fully updated at the beginning of the year. When municipality fusions take place during the year, swisstopo will publish a special update as soon as possible. In this case, the special edition of swissBOUNDARIES^3D includes only selective adjustments related to the fusion.

  Geometric enhancement

  The generalised data of GG25 at the 1:25,000 scale were imported into swissBOUNDARIES^3D.The geometry of the data set is being continually improved through the integration of Cadastral Survey data, which are derived from the surveying and measurement processes for national borders. The progress of these processes is published in each information update.

  Quality

  • Full national coverage in homogenous form and quality 
  • Geometric accuracy ± 0.5 m in position and elevation
    
  • Stable and unambiguous object identification
  • Simple structure 

• Documents

  Almost all publications concerning swissBOUNDARIES^3D are only available in German and French. Please select your preferred language in the navigation bar to view the desired document.

• Links

  • Gemeindegrenzen: Zeitreihe seit 1850
  • The Topographic Landscape Model TLM

swissBOUNDARIES3D - Download