Data Sources & Attribution
GeoQuetzal is a software library that facilitates access to public data from the census 2018 in Guatemala (Instituto Nacional de Estadística), and administraitve boundaries (Ministerio fr Finanzas). The package does not generate or modify the original data, but it reformats, partitions, and distributes it in optimized formats (Parquet, GeoJSON) to make computational analysis easier.
Census Data — INE Guatemala
Person, household, housing unit, emigration, and lugar poblado microdata come from the XII National Population and Housing Census 2018, published by Guatemala’s National Institute of Statistics (INE).
| Institution | Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) |
| Dataset | XII Censo Nacional de Población y VII de Vivienda 2018 |
| Original access | censo2018.ine.gob.gt/descarga |
| Type | Public data |
| Coverage | National — 14,901,286 persons, 3,275,931 households |
The Parquet files distributed via GitHub Releases are derived versions of INE’s original CSV files, converted to Parquet format and partitioned by department for efficient downloads. The data content has not been altered.
If you use the 2018 Census data in an academic publication, please cite both GeoQuetzal and INE as the original data source.
How to cite INE data:
Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). (2018). XII Censo Nacional de Población y VII de Vivienda 2018. Guatemala: INE. Available at: https://censo2018.ine.gob.gt
Administrative Boundaries — MINFIN Guatemala
Department and municipality boundaries come from TopoJSON files published by Guatemala’s Ministry of Finance (MINFIN).
| Institution | Ministerio de Finanzas Públicas de Guatemala (MINFIN) |
| Dataset | Mapas TopoJSON de Guatemala |
| Original access | github.com/minfin-bi/Mapas-TopoJSON-Guatemala |
| Type | Public data |
| Coverage | 22 departments, 340 municipalities (as of 2026) |
Boundary files are bundled directly in the package, so they load instantly with no internet connection. GeoQuetzal replaces MINFIN’s names with official INE nomenclature to ensure reliable joins by numeric codew on DepartameNTOS, Municipios, and Lugares Poblados.
Guatemala City Zones — GADM v4.1
The 22 zone polygons for Guatemala City are obtained from GADM (Global Administrative Areas), version 4.1.
| Source | GADM v4.1 |
| Original access | gadm.org / geodata.ucdavis.edu |
| License | Free for academic and non-commercial use |
| Use in GeoQuetzal | Only for gq.municipios("Guatemala", zonas=True) |
GADM data is subject to its own license — free for academic and non-commercial use, but may not be redistributed or used commercially without permission. GeoQuetzal downloads these data on demand directly from GADM servers (when it is needed to visualize the zones) and does not bundle them in the library.
Voronoi Polygons — Derived from INE Centroids
The Voronoi polygons generated by gq.voronoi_lugares_poblados() are computational derivatives calculated from lugar poblado centroids present in INE’s census data. They are not official boundaries and have not been published by any government institution.
| Type | Computational approximation |
| Method | Voronoi tessellation (scipy) clipped to municipal boundaries (MINFIN) |
| Centroid source | INE — XII Censo 2018 |
| Recommended use | Choropleth visualization only |
These polygons are approximations for visualization purposes only. They should not be used for area analysis, official delimitations, or documents with precise cartographic requirements.
Source summary
| GeoQuetzal function | Data source | License |
|---|---|---|
gq.departamentos(), gq.municipios(), gq.lagos() |
MINFIN Guatemala | Public |
gq.municipios("Guatemala", zonas=True) |
GADM v4.1 | Academic/non-commercial |
gq.personas(), gq.hogares(), gq.viviendas(), gq.emigracion() |
INE — Censo 2018 | Public |
gq.lugares_poblados() |
INE — Censo 2018 (pre-aggregated) | Public |
gq.voronoi_lugares_poblados() |
Derived from INE + MINFIN | Public (derived) |
About GeoQuetzal
GeoQuetzal is open-source software published under the MIT License. Source code is available at github.com/geoquetzal/geoquetzal.
The package authors make no claim of authorship over the original INE, MINFIN, or GADM data. The value GeoQuetzal provides is the integration, reformatting, grouping, and documentation of these datasets into a unified, reproducible interface.
GeoQuetzal is distributed as-is (MIT License), without warranty of any kind. The authors assume no responsibility for how the data, analyses, visualizations, or conclusions derived from this library are used. It is the user’s responsibility to verify results, choose appropriate denominators for each analysis, and consult the original INE metadata and documentation before publishing or making decisions based on the data. Voronoi polygons generated by voronoi_lugares_poblados() are computational approximations for visualization only and should not be used as official boundaries in any context requiring cartographic precision.