When they exist, digital maps with municipal-level administrative boundaries are considered a state secretl and not available to foreign researchers and international organisations. Gridded population data from the Landscan project at a fine level of spatial disaggregation - 1 km2 - is used to identify city cores. The identification of core municipalities was made possible thanks to the derivation of municipal boundaries of the 26 FUA cores (i.e. the largest cities in Kazakhstan) from open cartographic resources, such as Open Street Map.