How to cite Spatial India

Citing is free and always will be — it is not a paid feature. In most cases you should cite the original data publisher, not us. The exception is when your result depends on our crosswalk or on a value we derived.

Which to cite

• Cite the original source when you are reporting a published figure that we merely displayed — a Census population, an NFHS-5 rate, an NCRB count. The authority is theirs. We provide the source and year on every layer and export so you can reference it directly.
• Cite Spatial India as well when your result depends on work we did: the 808-district crosswalk, a value that was estimated or inherited for a district created after the source was published, or any cross-source comparison that was only possible because the sources were placed on one geography.
• Cite both if in doubt. Reviewers object to under-attribution far more often than to over-attribution.

Reference formats

Replace the access date with the date you retrieved the data. The data version is the date the platform was last updated.

Spatial India. (2026). Spatial India: Standardized district-level data for India (Version 2026-08-02) [Data set]. Retrieved [access date], from https://spatialindia.com

Spatial India. "Spatial India: Standardized District-Level Data for India." Version 2026-08-02. Accessed [access date]. https://spatialindia.com.

@misc{spatialindia,
  title        = {Spatial India: Standardized District-Level Data for India},
  author       = {{Spatial India}},
  year         = {2026},
  version      = {2026-08-02},
  howpublished = {\url{https://spatialindia.com}},
  note         = {Accessed: [access date]}
}

Citing a specific view

Every view in the map encodes its full state — active layers, pinned districts, map position, focused state — into the URL. Copy that URL into your citation or footnote and a reader lands on exactly what you were looking at. This is the closest thing to a reproducible figure reference we can offer, and it costs nothing.

The crosswalk file

The standalone crosswalk — district identifiers, names, parent relationships, and estimation flags — is being prepared for deposit with a permanent DOI so it can be cited independently of the site. Until that is live, cite the reference above and note the version. If you need the file itself for a replication package, email hello@spatialindia.com and we will send it.

Underlying sources

All 12sources are public, used under India's NDSAP guidelines. Cite them by their published names:

• National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) — 2019–21
• Census 2011 — 2011
• Agricultural Census 2015-16 — 2015–16
• RBI Bank Credit (BSR-1) — 2026
• National Crime Records Bureau — SLL Crimes — 2022
• National Judicial Data Grid — 2024
• Climate Vulnerability Index — 2021
• Udyam Registration (MSME) — 2026
• Town Amenities Census 2011 — 2011
• eRaktKosh Blood Bank Registry — 2024
• GOBARdhan Biogas Plants — 2026
• NASA VIIRS Night-time Lights — 2012 & 2024

Method and known limitations are documented on the methodology page; per-layer notes are on the caveats page. If you are citing us in a paper we would like to read it — hello@spatialindia.com.