This polygon shapefile contains the municipal boundaries for the state of Maranhão, Brazil, in 2010. Municipalities are subdivisions of Brazilian states. The seat of the municipal administration is a denominated city, with no consideration from the law about the population, area or facilities. The city has the same name of the municipality. Municipalities can be subdivided, only for administrative purposes, in districts (normally, new municipalities are formed from these districts). Other populated sites are villages, but with no legal effects or regulation. This layer is part of the Evolução da divisão territorial do Brasil 1872 - 2010 dataset, a collection of data representing the evolution of Brazilian states, municipalities and cities. This dataset is intended for researchers, students, and policy makers for reference and mapping purposes, and may be used for basic applications such as viewing, querying, and map output production, or to provide a basemap to support graphical overlays and analysis with other spatial data. This layer is presented in the WGS84 coordinate system for web display purposes. Downloadable data are provided in native coordinate system or projection.
