This FAQ document provides official answers to many common questions about Global Insight and Global Insight Plus, version 2010.1.

Where the text in this document shows Global Insight [Plus], this refers to both Global Insight and Global Insight Plus.

What is Global Insight?

Global Insight is a 1:1,000,000 scale digital map database of the entire world. The database contains up-to-date political entities (1:1m & 1:3m scale), coastlines, international borders, some first level administration borders, time zones and over 850,000 named places with urban sprawls.

What is Global Insight Plus?

Global Insight Plus consists of Global Insight with additional layers: roads, railways/railroads, airports (including IATA code), ports (including UN/LOCODE) and drainage (rivers/lakes) features.

What can Global Insight [Plus] be used for?

Since Global Insight [Plus] is a general purpose global reference map, it has a great number of potential applications. The product is already used in diverse industries such as telecommunications, insurance, retail, oil & gas exploration, asset tracking, aeronautical, marine and media. Any application which has an international scope will benefit from using Global Insight [Plus].

Does Global Insight [Plus] include any software?

No. Global Insight [Plus] is a map data product only. Commercial software such as ESRI ArcGIS (ArcView/ArcEditor/ArcInfo) or MapInfo Professional, can be used to display and spatially analyse Global Insight [Plus].

Can Global Insight [Plus] maps be used on the Internet or corporate intranet?

Yes. Global Insight [Plus] is an ideal world reference map for many applications using web technology. A typical application is "Where's the Nearest...?", where a consumer enters their home location (looked up in the extensive Global Insight places gazetteer) and is then presented with their nearest retail outlets, etc.

In what data formats is Global Insight [Plus] available?

Global Insight [Plus] is supplied on CD-ROM in ESRI Shapefile, MapInfo TAB & MapInfo MIF/MID formats as standard. The primary and alternative place name layer is also available as an Access (MDB), dBase (DBF) or tab delimited file (TXT). Other data formats may be supported by special arrangement.

Is the data in vector or raster format?

All data in Global Insight [Plus] is in vector format.

How is the data expressed and what projection & reference system does it use?

All geographic features in Global Insight [Plus] are expressed in latitude/longitude coordinates in a geographic projection using WGS-84, the same reference system used by the US Global Positioning System (GPS).

How accurate is Global Insight [Plus]?

Europa Technologies quotes horizontal accuracy to be <=2,048 metres rounded to nearest 5 meters at 90% circular error, World Geodetic System (WGS-84). For coverage of the Antarctic area, horizontal accuracy is <=4,270 metres at 90% circular error. Spot elevations ±30 metres at 90% linear error, mean sea level. GPS tests world-wide have shown that the data often has an horizontal accuracy <=500 metres, making it highly suitable for small scale reference mapping in asset tracking applications. Many places have been manually adjusted to match satellite or aerial imagery.

How is the data organised?

The data is organised by feature type with each layer having seamless global coverage. The layers in Global Insight are political overview (1:3m scale), political (1:1m scale), time zones (with DST) coastlines, international borders, some 1st and 2nd level administrative borders, places, places with alternative spelling and urban sprawls. The following support layers are also provided: 5, 10, 15 & 30 degree grids, UTM Zones, International Date Line, Equator, Tropics, Arctic/Antarctic circles. Global Insight Plus consists of all data layers from Global Insight with the addition of: roads, railways/railroads, airports, ports, and drainage (rivers & lakes).

Which countries have 1st level and 2nd level administrative borders/regions.

1st level borders and regions are available for nearly all countries. Please contact us for a list of countries not yet supported. 2nd level administrative regions are available only for the United States (counties). ISO 3166-2 and FIPS 10-4 region codes are supported. Each new release of Global Insight [Plus] sees new countries divided by administrative region.

Does the Time Zone layer include Daylight Saving Time (DST) information?

Yes. Daylight Saving Time is the period of the year when the clocks "spring forward", usually by one hour in Spring time and "fall back" in Autumn/Fall. The seasons are of course determined by hemisphere. The Time Zone layer has fields to indicate whether a country/region observes DST and has the start and end times for the period (expressed in Universal Time, UTC) for 2002 - 2010. Successive versions of Global Insight [Plus] will include information for subsequent years.

Is Global Insight up-to-date?

Yes. The overview and detailed political maps are kept up-to-date through links with a number of international organisations, national mapping agencies and academic/research institutions. The places gazetteer is maintained through daily monitoring of news and international press as well as links to major foreign and domestic naming committees.

Is Global Insight Plus up-to-date?

The roads, railways/railroads, airports and drainage layers are much more difficult to maintain than the political map and places gazetteer. We utilise all resources available to update the layers but concede that some transportation network developments may not be depicted in Global Insight Plus.

How many places are there?

Global Insight [Plus] contains over 850,000 named places. All are attributed with name, country, country code (ISO & FIPS), administrative area (where available, with ISO & FIPS codes), size classification, population estimates (for 93,000+ locations), language code, type (primary or alternative name) and latitude/longitude.

How many places are there in a particular country?

Europa Technologies has produced a document with gazetteer statistics by country. Details include the number of places, number of alternative names, percentage with administrative area name and breakdown by size classification. Please e-mail our sales team to request a copy of the spreadsheet.

What is in the alternative place name layer?

The alternative name layers consists of secondary names and foriegn exonyms. These can be the English conventional name (e.g. Roma / Rome), foreign names (including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese & some Japanese [Kanji and Katakana]), second national language (e.g. Finnish: Helsinki / Swedish: Helsingfors) or long/short form (e.g. Kingston / Kingston-upon-Thames). This data allows places to be located or geocoded no matter how they are spelled.

Are there accented characters found in the gazetteer?

Yes. Tens of thousands of places in the gazetteer contain one or more accented character. Global Insight [Plus] uses accented characters from a standard ANSI font, also known as the Unicode Latin 1 code page. Other characters, such as those from Eastern Europe, Cyrillic and areas of the Far East are correctly transliterated to their romanised form. Version 6.0 of Global Insight [Plus] introduced native Japanese names in Kanji & Katakana (as appropriate) for country names, Japan's prefectures and capital/major cities.

Is the large gazetteer partitioned in any way?

Yes. The gazetteer has a "Class" field which contains a value from 1 to 6. Value 1 indicates that the place is a capital, 2 is a major city running down to 6 which indicates a village or other minor settlement. Over 93,000 locations have population data (official statistics and modeled values).

Is the road or railway/railroad network in Global Insight Plus suitable for routing or drivetime analysis?

The roads and railways/railroads in Global Insight Plus are not named in any way which limits routing applications. If the scale and currency of the networks are acceptable, the data does have sufficient topological integrity to be used for routing or any other form of network analysis. Course drive-times around positions can also be achieved.

Does the airport layer in Global Insight Plus contain the name and three letter International Air Transport Association (IATA) code? e.g. LHR = London Heathrow.

Yes. The layer contains over 31,500 airports with name and IATA code where available. There is also an attribute which details if scheduled national and/or international flights operate to/from each location.

Does the ports layer in Global Insight Plus contain the name and five letter United Nations (UN) LOCODE? e.g. EGPSD = Port Said, Egypt.

Yes. The layer contains over 7,400 ports with name and UN/LOCODE where available.

Can the data be used in for aeronautical/marine navigation or other critical applications?

No. Global Insight [Plus] is not a replacement for high integrity data sets, such as airport databases, which are approved for critical use. If there is any doubt to the suitability of Global Insight [Plus], consult Europa Technologies before using of the product.

Is Global Insight [Plus] available as a continental or regional subset?

The place name gazetteer of Global Insight is available in continental form as part of our Global Elements product range. Global Insight Plus is only supplied with global coverage. However, since the data is competitively priced, it is often both cheaper and superior to data sets with limited coverage.

Is there elevation data available for use with Global Insight [Plus]?

Europa Technologies produces a sister product called Global Discovery which contains all layers from Global Insight Plus with additional vector and raster-based elevation layers.

Is the data sold or licensed?

All data from Europa Technologies is licensed, not sold, and is subject to a standard end user license agreement (EULA).

What uses are permitted by the end user licence agreement (EULA)?

The standard Europa Technologies single user licence agreement (EULA) allows the data to be installed and used at a single computer workstation. Printed output and digital images of the map data can be distributed within the licensed organisations. Distributions outside the organisation in printed or electronic form, including publishing on the Internet, is covered by a separate licence agreement.

Are samples available?

Samples are available in ESRI Shapefile and MapInfo TAB formats. Unfortunately custom samples are not possible. Please contact our sales team to request a sample.

How much does is cost and where can I get further information?

For further information, visit product information pages on our web site (links below) or contact our sales team

Global Insight
Global Insight Plus