This repository conatin the following file:

• cn.json - shape files + places data
• places.json - Major cites in China
• subunits.json - China cartographic boundaries

See preview here: https://github.com/fraserxu/geo-cn/blob/master/datas/cn.json

I wanted to build a map with d3.js, and I followed up this post Let’s Make a Map. But after get started, I finded it hard to get the needed map data for me, especially for a country like China.

In the post Mike provided lots of good resources to find geographic data, here I just took a step way further and prepared the target data for me to use.

The source data is converted from Natural Earth.

You can download the complete file from Admin 0 - Details - map subunits

• gdal(Geospatial Data Abstraction Library)

  brew install gdal

• topjson(TopoJSON)

  npm install -g topjson

• create subunits.json GeoJSON file(here including Hongkong, Taiwan and Macau):

  ogr2ogr \
    -f GeoJSON \
    -where "ADM0_A3 IN ('CHN', 'HKG', 'TWN', 'MAC')" \
    subunits.json \
    ne_10m_admin_0_map_subunits.shp
  

• create places.json GeoJSON file

  ogr2ogr \
    -f GeoJSON \
    -where "ISO_A2 IN ('CN', 'HK', 'TW', 'MO') AND SCALERANK < 8" \
    places.json \
    ne_10m_populated_places.shp
  

• generate cn.json file

  topojson \
    -o cn.json \
    --id-property SU_A3 \
    --properties name=NAME \
    -- \
    subunits.json \
    places.json
  

MIT