How to create an intensive map of Russia using QGIS or any other software?

Question

I am trying to create an intensive (heat) map of Russia. I have an excel sheet of 36 Russian regions and their corresponding values.

I know that there were similar questions: How to create a map with states by attribute value?

However, I do not know which software is better to use. For the Q-GIS, I cannot find an appropriate shape file with Russian administrative regions.

Any help would be highly appreciated! Thank you!

Answer 1

One of the best sources of administrative boundaries is Global Administrative Areas. I downloaded the Russian administrative boundaries and there are four shapefiles included with the zipped file of varying levels of administrative boundary detail. The attached image shows Russian administrative level 1 boundaries, which include autonomous provinces, territories, republics, and regions. There is also attached metadata which will clue you into the source.

Once you download the shapefiles, follow the directions in the link that you provided to create a choropleth map using QGIS.

Answer 2

So need the shapefile the administrative regions of Russia? If you have the data you can add both the and the table to the project. Your table needs to be in a format that qgis can read, like dbf or csv. If each field in your excel file has a unique value you can join those with the shape by right clicking on the layer properties > Joins.

for the data:

• Natural earth has some free data about administrative divisions: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors
• You might also find the right data on: http://market.weogeo.com/

Answer 3

GADM as mentioned by Aaron should be your first choice as it is one of the most accurate and exact free administrative boundary shapes out there (long sentence, huu). Another great resource is the NaturalEarth dataset, which comes in various resolutions and with many more features. If for example you want to display additional geographical features (big cities, rivers, lakes, physial labels), you should take a look on the dataset provided by the NaturalEarth team.

EDIT: A bit to late ;-)