Getting started in five minutes
Download the ZIP for one country, read its bundled README, then open the GeoParquet files in QGIS 3.28+ or Python/GeoPandas. Country packages are flat: the files are at the ZIP root, not inside a country folder.
Choose a year and administrative level before analysis. Compare units with unit_id rather than names, and use the event CSV to follow splits or mergers. Coverage varies by country; check the download table for the actual years and levels.
5-minute quick start
import geopandas as gpd
gdf = gpd.read_parquet("AFG_adm1_timeseries.parquet")
print(gdf[["unit_id", "snapshot_year", "name"]].head())