The CShapes GIS Dataset

Shapefile Format

The CShapes GIS dataset is provided in shapefile format, which can be processed by most GIS packages.
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CShapes for Google Earth

CShapes is available in KML format for use with Google Earth. You can use the time animation feature in Google Earth to show the changes in international borders over time. Instructions: Download one of the .kmz files below and open with Google Earth. No unzipping required, Google Earth can open .kmz files directly.
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Dyadic Distance Data

For the user's convenience, we provide precomputed dyadic country distance data based on CShapes. While all the distances can be computed in a much more flexible way with our cshapes R package, the precomputed datasets should be sufficient for most applications. Note: the dyadic distances in the file are computed annually, for June 30th of the respective year. The R code used to generate these datasets is available on the examples page.
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Documentation

A documentation of the variables in the dataset is provided in the download archive, or alternatively can be accessed here.