GeoDataset name: Admin98
World sub Country Administrative Units represent 2605 first level administrative units such as states and provinces.

  Admin98 -- World Administrative Units 1998
2,605 polygons, 13 descriptive fields. Defines world sub country administrative units as of 1998.
Fields:
Fips_admin -- The two-letter, two-number FIPS code for a first-level administrative unit from the  United States Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) coding scheme.  Example: The code for the state of Chiapas, Mexico, is MX05, where MX is Mexico and 05 is the number assigned to Chiapas.  For countries without administrative units, this field contains only the two-letter country code. (String)

Gmi_admin -- The three -letter country code combined with a three-letter code for a first-level administrative unit created by Global Mapping International. (string)
Admin_Name -- The name of a first-level administrative unit.  Example:  Hawaii. (String)
Fips_cntry -- The two-letter country code from the United States Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) coding scheme.  Example: KS for the Republic of Korea. (String)
Gmi_cntry -- The three -letter country code from Global Mapping International.  Example:  The code for the United Kingdom is GBR. (string)

Cntry_Name -- The country name.  These names are shortened and not necessarily official.  Example: Turkey (the official name is Republic of Turkey) (String)
Region -- The name of the world region.  The data is grouped into 25 commonly recognized world regions.  These provide an easy means of selecting a small multicountry area for display or study.  Example:  Eastern Africa. (string) 
Continent -- The continent name.  Example:  South America. (string) 

Pop_admin -- The population of a first level administrative unit.  (Source:  NCGIA.  The Global Demography Project.  Currency:  1994 estimated population.)  This field contains -99999 for countries for which population figures were unavailable. (numeric)
Sqkm_admin -- The total area of a first level administrative unit in square kilometers (excluding maritime areas). (numeric)
Sqmi_admin -- The total area of a first level administrative unit in square miles (excluding maritime areas). (numeric)

Type_eng -- The English name for the type of administrative unit.  Examples:  State, Province, Prefecture. (string)
Type_loc -- The local name for the type of administrative unit.  Examples:  Estado, Bundesland. (string)

GeoDataset name: Admin98
Shapefile name: Admin98.shp
Path: ESRI Data and Maps 1 (CD) \world
GeoDataset type: Admin98 is an ESRI shapefile with polygon features.
GeoDataset lineage: The sub Country Administrative Units 1998 GeoDataset represents a small-scale political map of the world. The data are generalized and were designed for display at scales to about 1:10,000,000.  The data were generalized from ESRI's ArcWorld Supplement Map data. Country codes are from U.S. Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) version 10-4.

Coordinate system: Latitude/Longitude in decimal degrees.
Coordinate precision: Double.
Useful display scales:
When displaying the entire world:

Largest scale:  1:5,000,000

Smallest scale:  1: 25,000,000

The generalization of the coastline is important in determining the largest useful display scale for World Administrative Unit data.