Maranhão: Divisão territorial e rodovias

Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura

doi:10.5281/zenodo.23453428

No. 020 Territorial divisions Brazil, state by state 20/27

Maranhão

Territorial divisions and highways

Record, downloads and citation

Map of Maranhão with its 217 municipalities coloured by the 5 intermediate geographic regions and the immediate-region boundaries; federal highways in terracotta red with BR shields, state highways in dark grey and the capital marked with a star. Around it, neighbouring units in light grey and the Atlantic Ocean in pale blue; a locator map of Brazil in the lower-right corner and a leaf-shaped north arrow in the upper-right corner. — Fig. 020 Maranhão state (MA) EPSG:4674 Source: IBGE, MapBiomas, Natural Earth

Maranhão has 217 municipalities across 330,000 km², 3.9 per cent of Brazil. IBGE groups them into 22 immediate regions, drawn around the towns that supply jobs, trade and services to their surroundings, and into 5 intermediate regions that tie those networks together. São Luís is the intermediate region with the most municipalities (73); Caxias, the one with the fewest (14). The largest municipality is Balsas (12,602 km²); the smallest, Raposa (79 km²). Part of the series “Brazil, state by state”: a clean base, with official boundaries and the road network, to start a map without losing the first afternoon gathering files.

Technical record · downloads · citation

At a glance

Layers

municipios polygon 217 municipalities, with IBGE code, regions, urban concentration and area (km²)
regioes_intermediarias polygon 5 intermediate geographic regions
regioes_imediatas polygon 22 immediate geographic regions
limite_estadual polygon Boundary of the federative unit
rodovias line Federal and state highways: route number, surface, physical status, carriageways
capital point Indicative point for the capital (not the exact seat)

Metadata

Sources: IBGE — Municipal Mesh 2025 (2025)
IBGE — Regional Division of Brazil into Immediate and Intermediate Geographic Regions (2017)
MapBiomas — Infrastructure: federal and state highways
Natural Earth — countries (plate only)
Extent: Maranhão state (MA)
CRS / Projection: SIRGAS 2000 (EPSG:4674)
EPSG:4674
Software: Python · GeoPandas · GDAL · QGIS · Node.js · d3-geo
Method: IBGE Municipal Mesh boundaries, dissolved into immediate and intermediate regions and the unit boundary; highways clipped to the unit.
Version: v1.0.0
Licence: CC BY 4.0
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23453428

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Figure to reuse

The map without a frame, with legend, scale, reference system and credit written on it: ready for papers, lectures and slides. In two versions: with the basemap (neighbours and sea) or only the mapped area, on white.

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How to cite

Cerejo, L. N. (2026). Maranhão: divisão territorial e rodovias [Maranhão: Territorial divisions and highways] (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23453428

@dataset{cerejo2026_estado_maranhao,
  author    = {Cerejo, Lucas Nakamura},
  title     = {Maranhão: Divisão territorial e rodovias},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  version   = {1.0.0},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.23453428},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23453428},
  language  = {portuguese},
  note      = {English title: Maranhão: Territorial divisions and highways. Licence CC BY 4.0}
}

How to read this plate area, projection, scale, legend and source

1 Area: Maranhão state (MA) The area the plate covers. Outside it, neighbours and sea are drawn in grey, just for orientation.
2 Coordinates and projection: SIRGAS 2000 (EPSG:4674) The layers are in SIRGAS 2000; the drawing’s projection is written in the colophon at the foot of the panel.
3 Scale: Graphic scale bar in the panel The scale bar is true on the central meridian; away from it, measured distances vary a little.
4 Legend and layers: 6 layers in the GeoPackage · polygon, line, point Read the legend before the map: it tells you whether a colour is a rate or a class, and whether a circle is a total.
5 Sources: IBGE (2025); IBGE (2017); MapBiomas; Natural Earth Every figure comes from a public source, with its year. The data sheet gives each one’s address.

Anatomy of a plate Full glossary

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Layers, table and figures, under CC BY 4.0. Cite with the DOI.

Full record and citation

Method notes · No. 020

Maranhão — territorial divisions and highways

Português · English

Plate No. 020 of the series Brazil, state by state: a cartographic base for each of the 27 federative units, with the same files, the same layers and the same design, ready to download and get to work.

What the files contain

Layer (GPKG)	Geometry	Contents
`municipios`	polygon	217 municipalities: `CD_MUN`, `NM_MUN`, immediate and intermediate regions, urban concentration, `area_km2`, `capital`
`regioes_intermediarias`	polygon	5 regions, with their number of municipalities
`regioes_imediatas`	polygon	22 regions, with their number of municipalities
`limite_estadual`	polygon	outline of the unit
`rodovias`	line	federal and state highways: `sigla`, `revestimento`, `situacao_fisica`, `n_pistas`, `pavimentada`
`capital`	point	indicative point inside the municipality (not the seat)

The GPKG is zipped and attached to the repository’s estados-2025 release, together with those of the other 26 units.

The GPKG carries its own QGIS styles, saved as each layer’s default style: drag the file into QGIS and the municipalities appear in the colours of their intermediate regions, boundaries and highways with the plate’s strokes, and names with a halo. Highway sections without a confirmed physical status sit in a legend rule that is switched off, as on the plate; tick it to see them. Other GIS software opens the layers as usual, without the style. To match the plate, stack them from top to bottom: capital, rodovias, limite_estadual, regioes_intermediarias, regioes_imediatas and municipios.

The CSV holds the municipal table in UTF-8, ready to join with Census data or any dataset keyed on the seven-digit IBGE code.

Method

IBGE Municipal Mesh 2025, with geometry unchanged in the downloadable files.
Immediate and intermediate regions and the boundary are dissolved from the municipalities, so their edges match exactly.
Federal and state highways from MapBiomas’ infrastructure base, clipped to the boundary. The plate shows built sections only.
Areas in km² as computed by IBGE; the total matches an Albers calculation (329,651.5 km²).
On the plate, geometries are simplified as a coverage (≈ 400 m), so the unit, its neighbours and the coastline share the same edges.

Limitations

The rodovias layer has an incomplete n_pistas field; do not use it to measure dual-carriageway length.
The capital point is indicative (an interior point of the municipal polygon).

View this map’s folder on GitHub