In this presentation we would like to show the data model, based on the relational database in PostgreSQL/PostGIS, that enables the editing, management, and versioning for the Official Administrative Map of Portugal (CAOP).

Our goal was to preserve, as much as possible, the structure of the final data when compared to previous versions of the boundaries. Additionally, we sought to apply concepts and techniques already used in other official national data models such as CARTTOP2 for topographic mapping.

Also it was needed create tools to periodically transpose CAOP into other data models, namely EuroBoundaries and the INSPIRE Administrative Boundaries theme.

None of the above would have been possible without QGIS, that has been used as a visualization tool, but more importantly as GIS platform to be used for editing the boundaries and to run automatized tasks (publishing, versioning, etc.), using some custom digitizing/processing tools developed specifically for this use case.

A special attention has been given to the topology correctness of the resulting data, as such some custom tools have been also created to validate the outputs.