Thousands of shapefile maps can be downloaded for free from the following websites, including country shapefiles, shapefiles at province or state level, and other administrative boundaries maps. The shapefile (or ESRI shapefile) format is a geospatial vector format, and is one of the most commonly used map formats.

Create interactive maps
 

WORLD shapefile maps

• Natural Earth - world maps - Excellent world shapefile maps with national boundaries, first order admin (provinces, states, etc.), disputed areas, coastlines, populated areas and more at various scale levels.
• GADM - Another great world shapefile map, which comes with multiple administrative layers.

COUNTRY shapefile maps

• GADM - Recently updated shapefile maps for all countries. For an alternative source based on GADM, but which also includes roads, railroads, altitude and land cover, see DIVA-GIS.
• HDX - In some countries boundaries change regularly, and for these countries the Humanitarian Data Exchange maps is a better source than GADM. These maps are updated on a more regular basis because they are used by UN, government and development agencies and need to reflect the current situation. However, it only covers select countries, shown in this map. If you cannot find it through the website, type in Google: InsertCountryName shapefile site:humdata.org
• Map Library - Country shapefile maps for Africa in the public domain.
• StatSilk - Interactive country-level shapefile maps
• OSM Boundaries: Download shapefile maps from Open Street Map - please note these are community edited, and not always complete.

ALL shapefile maps

• Geocommons - A huge database of user submitted maps. Search for any kind of map, then click on the "shapefile" button to the right of the map (if available) to download the shapefiles.
• MapCruzin - A great source for all kinds of shapefiles.
• Open Street Map - A growing collection of shapefile map downloads by continent, region and country. These maps are community edited and are not always complete. Various open street map shapefiles are also available from VDS tech.

US shapefile maps

• US Census Bureau - USA County and District Cartographic Boundary Files. See also the general maps page.

See also:

• Data: Recommended sources of global data for your maps
• Multi-layer maps: Create maps with multiple layers using Quantum GIS
• Point maps:
  • ​Find latitude/longitude coordinates for any city
  • Download a full list of city-level latitude/longitude coordinates
  • Create static/shapefile or interactive point maps
• Tools: Useful free shapefile map tools

Download country shapefile maps

Free country shapefile maps can be downloaded below, which have already been integrated into StatPlanet. Maps indicated with an asterisk (*) are Flash maps rather than shapefile maps. Please note that not all country versions are using the latest version of StatPlanet. To update the country version to the latest version, please see the update instructions.

Setting up a shapefile map in StatPlanet

1. Once you have downloaded StatPlanet, find the folder 'Shapefile_map' and then go to the sub-folder 'map'.
2. Remove the included example map files, and copy your own shapefiles here.
3. Rename your files (e.g. xxx.shp and xxx.dbf) to map.shp and map.dbf. Only these files are required.
4. Open the StatPlanet_data_editor file. Click on the button 'Setup shapefile' (in the top-left).
5. Select the map.dbf file in the 'map' sub-folder, and follow the instructions.
6. Run StatPlanet.exe or StatPlanet.html to see the results with the included sample data.

You can now start importing your own data for the map.

The font and interface components can be customized through the Excel sheet 'Settings'.

For further information, please see the Quick Start Developer Guide.

ESRI Shapefile Reader - Source Code

The source code for reading the shapefiles is included in the directory SHPreader.
It can be compiled to the file SHPreader.swf, which is read by StatPlanet.

The code was written by Edwin van Rijkom under the LGPL license, with some additions by Andy Woodruff, and some slight modifications for use in StatPlanet.

If you wish to change the names of the map files being read, you can change this in SHPreader.as, 
and publish it as SHPreader.swf through the file SHPreader.fla.

For more information, see: http://shp.riaforge.org/