International location data

What is GapMaps?

‍GapMaps builds spatial data products for retail and location strategy teams, combining demographic modeling with a global business location database sourced from Infobel. On Dewey, researchers can access two GapMaps datasets: Demographics Data, covering Asia Pacific and the Middle East, and POI Data, covering more than 172 million points of interest across 200+ markets and roughly 3,500 categories. Together they turn population, spending, and business location into a single spatial layer for analysis.

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What academic researchers should know about GapMaps location intelligence data

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Demographics Data is delivered at 150 meter grid cells in major cities and 1 kilometer grids elsewhere, with annual estimates for resident and worker population, consuming class, retail spend indicators, and census metrics across APAC and the Middle East, currently on the 2024 vintage, built from official census baselines and refined with anonymized mobile device signals and building footprint imagery. POI Data is built on Infobel's registered business entity foundation, with every record carrying a business name, full address, coordinates geocoded to the street, parcel, or building level, and a footprint polygon where available, drawn from more than 114 million building footprints total. Extended attributes including opening hours, contact details, company size, revenue, reviews, legal entity identifiers, and subsidiary links are layered in where available from official registries, public open data, telephone directories, licensed vendors, and web intelligence, with registry sourced records refreshed weekly so closures, relocations, and new registrations show up quickly across more than 30 years of data continuity.

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Why academic researchers choose GapMaps on Dewey

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GapMaps was built for retail and location strategy teams making real site selection and investment decisions, so the demographic data is far more granular than most public census products, especially across Asia Pacific and Middle East markets where district level statistics are often the finest resolution available. The POI layer adds the same depth on the business side, drawing on Infobel's registered business entity foundation, more than 1,100 data providers, and three decades of continuity across 200+ markets, standardized into one taxonomy of roughly 3,500 categories instead of scattered national registries and directories. For researchers studying urban economics, retail geography, or business dynamics outside the United States and Europe, that combination of grid level demographics and a deeply sourced global points of interest layer is hard to find anywhere else.

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GapMaps academic research ideas and use cases

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Researchers studying urbanization and internal migration across Asia Pacific and Middle East cities can use the 150 meter grid resident and worker population estimates to track density shifts over time, compare formal census counts against mobile derived estimates, or model daytime versus nighttime population at a resolution most national statistics offices do not publish.

The consuming class and retail spend indicators offer a way to study economic inequality and market access below the city level, useful for researchers examining how retail infrastructure and household purchasing power are distributed within fast growing metro areas in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Gulf.

POI Data's 172 million plus records across roughly 3,500 categories give researchers a way to study retail geography, franchise expansion, and business survival, mapping how QSR, health and fitness, and grocery brands cluster or compete for locations across markets with very different registry and reporting standards.

Legal entity identifiers and subsidiary links embedded in POI Data support research into corporate structure and market concentration, letting researchers trace ownership relationships between listed locations to examine how chains and multinational retailers expand into new markets over time.

With footprint polygons available for more than 114 million locations, researchers in urban planning and the built environment can pair POI Data with that geometry to study density, land use mix, or pedestrian scale retail environments at the building level rather than relying on address points alone.

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