fd_major_villages is a location of the four largest villages in each Fokontany, according to their building density in OpenStreetMap. Some Fokontany may have fewer than four villages, depending on the distribution of buildings. These data enable us to identify the major population centers within each administrative unit. Coordinates are expressed in WGS84.
Ifd_major_villages is a dataset identifying the location of up to four sentinel villages in each Fokontany, determined by the number of buildings and field-based knowledge of community locations. Some Fokontany may have fewer than four villages if there were fewer than four population centers in the Fokontany. This dataset is intended to highlight the main population centers within each administrative unit. Coordinates are expressed in WGS84.
Description
Columns
gid
numeric id of village
village
village name. Only present for those with a known village name.
lon
longitude of centroid (WGS84)
lat
latitude of centroid (WGS84)
nbrBati
number of buildings
comm_fkt
name of fokontany using standardized ‘new commune’_’fokontany’ nomenclature
Additional Info
✍️ Author
🔧 Maintainer
🗓 Last Updated
March 11, 2026
🔹 Processing Steps
Village locations and number of buildings were extracted from OpenStreetMap data updated in 2018. The largest villages were selected on the basis of the number of buildings and habitat area, according to Mauricianot's analysis.