The v2026.1 Global Exposure Model is a mosaic of local and regional models with information regarding the residential, commercial, and industrial building stock at the smallest available administrative division of each country and includes details about the number of buildings, number of occupants, vulnerability characteristics, average built-up area, and average replacement cost. 

The dataset is developed and maintained by the GEM Foundation, using a bottom-up approach at the global scale, using national statistics, socio-economic data, and local datasets. The datasets employed to develop this model were provided by national institutions, or developed within the scope of regional programs or bilateral collaborations. The global maps and the underlying databases are based on best available and publicly accessible datasets and models. 

This model allows the identification of the most common types of construction worldwide, regions with large fractions of informal construction, and areas prone to natural disasters with a high concentration of population and building stock. The underlying datasets used to create the maps are available for all regions of the world, aggregated at Administrative Level 1 under a CC BY-NC-SA license, or further disaggregated to higher administraive units or 1km grid cells, under specific licenses. 

The open and downloadable Global Exposure Maps (v2026.1) in PNG format, represent the geographic distribution of residential, commercial and industrial buildings in terms of four exposure metrics: number of buildings, economic loss, number of occupants and the replacement embodied carbon. The data is presented on a hexagonal grid, with a spacing of 0.25 × 0.30 decimal degrees, corresponding to an area of about 1,700 km2 per cell. These maps can also be explored through the Geoviewer.