levelslocal

Levelslocal is an open-source, community-driven data platform designed to collect and organize information about places and governance at local levels. It emphasizes a hierarchical, administrative model that maps data to country, region, city, district, and neighborhood, providing a consistent local context for research and civic tech.

The project originated in 2019 from a collaboration of urbanists, software developers, and open-data advocates seeking a scalable schema for local knowledge. It grew through online collaboration and local chapters, with a core team maintaining the reference data model, validators, and the public API.

Levelslocal's data model uses nodes tied to level indicators and relationships (contains, bordered by, part of). Each record includes a label, coordinates, categories, and optional metadata such as population, services, or governing body. The platform offers an API, example datasets, and export options in GeoJSON and JSON-LD.

Governance relies on a distributed network of volunteers and local ambassadors. Submissions pass through peer review and automated checks for consistency, deduplication, and geospatial validity. The project promotes open licenses and reproducible datasets, with quality linked to ongoing community involvement.

Applications include municipal open-data portals, academic research, and civic-tech projects that require coherent local-context data across jurisdictions. Users may browse, edit, or propose records, with emphasis on interoperability and local specificity.