More than half of the world's built-up urban areas with population of 500,000 and more were located in Asia in 2023. Europe, North America, and Europe had between 12 and 14 percent of the urban areas with more than 500,000 inhabitants.

This statistic shows the population density in urban areas of China in 2023, by region. In 2023, cities in Heilongjiang province had the highest population density in China with around 5,361 people living on one square kilometer on average. However, as the administrative areas of many Chinese cities reach beyond their contiguous built-up urban areas - and this by varying degree, the statistical significance of the given figures may be limited. By comparison, the Chinese province with the highest overall population density is Jiangsu province in Eastern China reaching about 7956 people per square kilometer in 2023.

This layer was created by Duncan Smith and based on work by the European Commission JRC and CIESIN. A description from his website follows:--------------------A brilliant new dataset produced by the European Commission JRC and CIESIN Columbia University was recently released- the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL). This is the first time that detailed and comprehensive population density and built-up area for the world has been available as open data. As usual, my first thought was to make an interactive map, now online at- http://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/The World Population Density map is exploratory, as the dataset is very rich and new, and I am also testing out new methods for navigating statistics at both national and city scales on this site. There are clearly many applications of this data in understanding urban geographies at different scales, urban development, sustainability and change over time.

The GRID3 settlement extents characterizes building density into three (3) classes: built-up areas (bua_extents), small settlement areas (ssa_extents), and hamlets (hamlet_extents) (Inuwa 2014). These three classes of settlement agglomerations are presented below:Built-up areas (BUAs) are generally areas of urbanization with moderately-to-densely-spaced buildings and a visible grid of streets and blocks. Built-up areas are characterized as polygons containing 13 or more buildings across an area greater than or equal to 400,000 square meters. Small settlements (SSAs) are settled areas of permanently inhabited structures and compounds of roughly a few hundred to a few thousand inhabitants. The housing pattern in SSAs is an assemblage of family compounds adjoining other similar habitations. Small settlement areas are characterized as polygons containing 50 or more buildings across an area less than 400,000 square meters. Hamlets are collections of several compounds or sleeping houses in isolation from small settlements or urban areas. Hamlets are characterized as polygons containing between 1 and 49 buildings across an area less than 400,000 square meters.For full methodological details please explore the data release statement available for download here.Population AttributesThe associated population estimates for the Settlement Extents datasets are derived from two WorldPop high resolution data sources. The WorldPop Top-down constrained population estimates 2020 (Population) uses, for each country, the highest admin level official population totals of the 2000 and 2010 census rounds, that are publicly available and can be mapped to associated boundaries, and projects them to 2020. These projected values then disaggregated statistically to 100x100m resolution using a set of detailed geospatial datasets to disaggregate them to grid cell-based counts. The estimates are constrained to settlements based on the satellite-derived building footprint data from Maxar/ecopia for the 51 African countries, and based on a built settlement growth model of WorldPop for the remaining countries.The Population Counts / Constrained Individual countries 2020 UN adjusted (100m resolution) population estimates (Pop_UN_adj) recognizes that the United Nations produce their own estimates of national population totals. WorldPop, in order to provide flexibility to users, adjusted the number of people per pixel of its top-down constrained population estimates nationally to match the corresponding official United Nations population estimates (i.e. 2019 Revision of World Population Prospects).For more information about WorldPop's methods, see:● Methods for Gridded Population Estimate Datasets● Top-down estimation modelling: Constrained vs Unconstrained "Population Counts / Constrained Individual countries 2020 (100m resolution)" & "Population Counts / Constrained Individual countries 2020 UN adjusted (100m resolution)" derived from WorldPop.org.Suggested Data Set Citation: Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University and Novel-T. 2021. GRID3 Republic of Botswana Settlement Extents, Version 01.01. Palisades, NY: Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3). https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-seam-2q42. Accessed DAY MONTH YEAR

The present dataset is part of the published scientific paper entitled “The role of spatial planning in land change: An assessment of urban planning and nature conservation efficiency at the southeastern coast of Brazil” (Pierri Daunt, Inostroza and Hersperger, 2021). In this work, we evaluated the conformance of stated spatial planning goals and the outcomes in terms of urban compactness, basic services and housing provision, and nature conservation for different land-use strategies. We evaluate the 2005 Ecological-Economic Zoning (EEZ) and two municipal master plans from 2006 in a coastal region in São Paulo State, Brazil. We used Partial Least Squares Path Modelling (PLS-PM) to explain the relationship between the plan strategies and land-use change ten years after implementation in terms of urban compactness, basic services and housing increase, and nature conservation.

We acquired the data for the explanatory variables from different sources listed on Table 1. Since the model is spatially explicit, all input data were transformed to a 30 m resolution raster. Regarding the evaluated spatial plans, we acquired the zones limits from the São Paulo State Environmental Planning Division (CPLA-SP), Ilhabela and Ubatuba municipality.

1) Land use and cover data: Urban persistence, Urban axial, Urban infill, Urban Isolates, Forest cover persistence, Forest cover gain, NDVI increase

We acquired two Landsat Collection 1 Higher-Level Surface Reflectance images distributed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), covering the entire study area (paths 76 and 77, row 220, WRS-2 reference system, https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/). We classified one image acquired by the Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor on 2005-05-150, and one image from the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensor from 2015-08-15. We collected 100 samples for forest cover, 100 samples for built-up cover and 100 samples for other classes. We then classified these three classes of land cover at each image date using the Support Vector Machine (SVM) supervised algorithm (Hsu et al., 2003), using ENVI 5.0 software.

Land-use and land-cover changes from 2005 to 2015 were quantified using map algebra, by mathematically adding them together in pairs (10*LULC2015 + LULC2005). We reclassified the LULC data into forest gain (conversion of any 2005 LULC to forest cover in 2015); forest persistence (2005 forested pixels that remained forested in 2015); new built-up area (conversion of any 2005 LULC to built-up in 2015); and urban maintenance (2005 built-up pixels that remained built-up in 2015).

To describe the spatial configuration of the urban expansion, we classified the new built-up areas into axial, infill and isolated, following Inostroza et al. (2013) (For details, please refer to Supplementary Material I at the original publication).

The NDVI was obtained from the same source used for the LULC data. With the Google Engine platform, we used an annual average for the best pixels (without clouds) for 2005 and 2015, and we calculated the changes between dates. We used increases of > 0.2 NDVI to represent an improvement in forest quality.

2) Federal Census data organization: Urban Basic Services and Housing indicator, socioeconomic and population:

The data used to infer the values of basic services provision, socioeconomic and population drivers was derived from the Brazilian National Census data (IBGE, 2000 and 2010). Population density, permanent housing unit density, mean income, basic education, and the percentage of houses receiving waste collection, sanitation and water provision services, called basic services in the context of this study, were calculated per 30 m pixel. The Human Development Index is only available at the municipality level. We attributed the HDI for the vector file with the municipality border, and we rasterized (30 m resolution) this file in QGIS. Annual rates of change were then calculated to allow comparability between LULC periods. To infer the BSH, we used only areas with an increase in permanent housing density and basic services provision (See Supplementary Material I at the original publication).

3) Topographic drivers

To infer the values of the topographic driver, we used the slope data and the Topographic Index Position (TPI) based on the digital elevation model from SRTM (30 m resolution) produced by ALOS (freely available at eorc.jaxa.jp/ALOS/en/about/about_index.htm), and both variables were considered constant from 2005 to 2015 (See Supplementary Material I at the original publication).

China is a vast and diverse country and population density in different regions varies greatly. In 2023, the estimated population density of the administrative area of Shanghai municipality reached about 3,922 inhabitants per square kilometer, whereas statistically only around three people were living on one square kilometer in Tibet. Population distribution in China China's population is unevenly distributed across the country: while most people are living in the southeastern half of the country, the northwestern half – which includes the provinces and autonomous regions of Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia – is only sparsely populated. Even the inhabitants of a single province might be unequally distributed within its borders. This is significantly influenced by the geography of each region, and is especially the case in the Guangdong, Fujian, or Sichuan provinces due to their mountain ranges. The Chinese provinces with the largest absolute population size are Guangdong in the south, Shandong in the east and Henan in Central China. Urbanization and city population Urbanization is one of the main factors which have been reshaping China over the last four decades. However, when comparing the size of cities and urban population density, one has to bear in mind that data often refers to the administrative area of cities or urban units, which might be much larger than the contiguous built-up area of that city. The administrative area of Beijing municipality, for example, includes large rural districts, where only around 200 inhabitants are living per square kilometer on average, while roughly 20,000 residents per square kilometer are living in the two central city districts. This is the main reason for the huge difference in population density between the four Chinese municipalities Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing shown in many population statistics.

The Urban Atlas provides pan-European comparable land use and land cover data for 6 Functional Urban Areas (FUA) in Lithuania territory for the 2012 reference year. Additional information (product description, mapping guidance and class description) can be found: https://land.copernicus.eu/user-corner/technical-library/urban-atlas-2012-mapping-guide-new The Urban Atlas is mainly based on the combination of (statistical) image classification and visual interpretation of Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery. Multispectral SPOT 5 & 6 and Formosat-2 pan-sharpened imagery with a 2 to 2.5m spatial resolution is used as input data. The built-up classes are combined with density information on the level of sealed soil derived from the High Resolution Layer imperviousness to provide more detail in the density of the urban fabric. Finally, the Urban Atlas product is complemented and enriched with functional information (road network, services, utilities etc…) using ancillary data sources such as local city maps or online map services. Additional codes are given according to EAGLE matrix: https://land.copernicus.eu/eagle/content-documentation-of-the-eagle-concept/manual/content-documentation-of-the-eagle-concept/b-thematic-content-and-definitions-of-eagle-model-elements/part-ii-land-use-attributes Minimum Mapping Unit: Class 1: 0.25 ha Class 2-5: 1ha Minimum Mapping Width: 10m

Data was produced with funding by the European Union. Copyright Copernicus Programme

DISCLAIMER: Construction Sector Development Agency has undertaken to distribute the data on behalf of EEA under Specific Contract No 3436/R0-Copernicus/EEA.56943 implementing Framework service contract No EEA/IDM/R0/16/009/Lithuania. SE «GIS-Centras» accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the content and use of these data.

Refer to the current geographies boundaries table for a list of all current geographies and recent updates. This dataset is the definitive version of the annually released statistical area 2 (SA2) boundaries as at 1 January 2025 as defined by Stats NZ. This version contains 2,395 SA2s (2,379 digitised and 16 with empty or null geometries (non-digitised)). SA2 is an output geography that provides higher aggregations of population data than can be provided at the statistical area 1 (SA1) level. The SA2 geography aims to reflect communities that interact together socially and economically. In populated areas, SA2s generally contain similar sized populations. The SA2 should: form a contiguous cluster of one or more SA1s, excluding exceptions below, allow the release of multivariate statistics with minimal data suppression, capture a similar type of area, such as a high-density urban area, farmland, wilderness area, and water area, be socially homogeneous and capture a community of interest. It may have, for example: a shared road network, shared community facilities, shared historical or social links, or socio-economic similarity, ​ form a nested hierarchy with statistical output geographies and administrative boundaries. It must: be built from SA1s, either define or aggregate to define SA3s, urban areas, territorial authorities, and regional councils. SA2s in city council areas generally have a population of 2,000–4,000 residents while SA2s in district council areas generally have a population of 1,000–3,000 residents. In major urban areas, an SA2 or a group of SA2s often approximates a single suburb. In rural areas, rural settlements are included in their respective SA2 with the surrounding rural area. SA2s in urban areas where there is significant business and industrial activity, for example ports, airports, industrial, commercial, and retail areas, often have fewer than 1,000 residents. These SA2s are useful for analysing business demographics, labour markets, and commuting patterns. In rural areas, some SA2s have fewer than 1,000 residents because they are in conservation areas or contain sparse populations that cover a large area. To minimise suppression of population data, small islands with zero or low populations close to the mainland, and marinas are generally included in their adjacent land-based SA2. Zero or nominal population SA2s To ensure that the SA2 geography covers all of New Zealand and aligns with New Zealand’s topography and local government boundaries, some SA2s have zero or nominal populations. These include: SA2s where territorial authority boundaries straddle regional council boundaries. These SA2s each have fewer than 200 residents and are: Arahiwi, Tiroa, Rangataiki, Kaimanawa, Taharua, Te More, Ngamatea, Whangamomona, and Mara. SA2s created for single islands or groups of islands that are some distance from the mainland or to separate large unpopulated islands from urban areas SA2s that represent inland water, inlets or oceanic areas including: inland lakes larger than 50 square kilometres, harbours larger than 40 square kilometres, major ports, other non-contiguous inlets and harbours defined by territorial authority, and contiguous oceanic areas defined by regional council. SA2s for non-digitised oceanic areas, offshore oil rigs, islands, and the Ross Dependency. Each SA2 is represented by a single meshblock. The following 16 SA2s are held in non-digitised form (SA2 code; SA2 name): 400001; New Zealand Economic Zone, 400002; Oceanic Kermadec Islands, 400003; Kermadec Islands, 400004; Oceanic Oil Rig Taranaki, 400005; Oceanic Campbell Island, 400006; Campbell Island, 400007; Oceanic Oil Rig Southland, 400008; Oceanic Auckland Islands, 400009; Auckland Islands, 400010 ; Oceanic Bounty Islands, 400011; Bounty Islands, 400012; Oceanic Snares Islands, 400013; Snares Islands, 400014; Oceanic Antipodes Islands, 400015; Antipodes Islands, 400016; Ross Dependency. SA2 numbering and naming Each SA2 is a single geographic entity with a name and a numeric code. The name refers to a geographic feature or a recognised place name or suburb. In some instances where place names are the same or very similar, the SA2s are differentiated by their territorial authority name, for example, Gladstone (Carterton District) and Gladstone (Invercargill City). SA2 codes have six digits. North Island SA2 codes start with a 1 or 2, South Island SA2 codes start with a 3 and non-digitised SA2 codes start with a 4. They are numbered approximately north to south within their respective territorial authorities. To ensure the north–south code pattern is maintained, the SA2 codes were given 00 for the last two digits when the geography was created in 2018. When SA2 names or boundaries change only the last two digits of the code will change. ​ High-definition version This high definition (HD) version is the most detailed geometry, suitable for use in GIS for geometric analysis operations and for the computation of areas, centroids and other metrics. The HD version is aligned to the LINZ cadastre. ​ Macrons Names are provided with and without tohutō/macrons. The column name for those without macrons is suffixed ‘ascii’. ​ Digital data Digital boundary data became freely available on 1 July 2007. ​ Further information To download geographic classifications in table formats such as CSV please use Ariā For more information please refer to the Statistical standard for geographic areas 2023. Contact: geography@stats.govt.nz

The data sources of this dataset mainly include domestic satellite images such as HJ-1A/B, GF-1/2, ZY-3, and Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI series satellite image data. Using the domestic satellite images supplemented by Google Earth images to generate the component training sample and validation sample data of different geographical divisions. Using Google Earth Engine (GEE) to test and correct the model algorithm parameters. The normalized settlement density index (NSDI) is obtained based on random forest algorithm, Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI series satellite images and auxiliary data. The vector boundary of urban built-up area is obtained by density segmentation method after manual interactive interpretation and correction. The NSDI, vegetation coverage index and vector boundary of the Tibetan Plateau are used to produce the original data of urban impervious surface and urban green space fractions in the Tibetan Plateau. After correction and accuracy evaluation, the datasets of urban impervious surface area and green space fractions in the Tibetan Plateau from 2000 to 2020 are generated. The resolution of the data product is 30 m, and the coordinate system and storage format of the data files are unified. The geographic coordinate system is WGS84, the projected coordinate system is Albers, and the data storage format is GeoTIFF, the data unit is percentage (the value range is 0~10000), and the scale factor is 0.01. In order to quantify the change of urban land cover more accurately, samples from several typical cities are selected to verify the dataset. The specific verification methods and accuracy are shown in the published results. The data can be used to analyze and reveal the impact of land cover change and future scenario simulation on the Tibetan Plateau, to provide a scientific basis for building environmentally livable cities and improving the quality of human settlements on the Tibetan Plateau.

This dataset portrays the boundaries of 'Localities' in Scotland as at the 2001 Census.. There is widespread interest in statistics for the built-up areas in Scotland as most of the population lives in a built-up environment. When the former two-tier local government structure of regions and districts came into being in May 1975, the small local authorities known as large and small burghs were lost. However, Census users stated that there was a need to know the population (and characteristics) of built-up areas. For the 2001 Census the method used to identify Localities was very similar to that used in 1991 in that it was based on identifying groups of high density postcodes.

The real GRZ represents a measure of urban density and, with the ratio of the built-up area to the land area, indicates the building’s intensity of use. Reference surfaces are the blocks and sub-blocks of the ISU5 1: 5,000, as at 31.12.2015.

This dataset is associated with the McDonald et al. paper, entitled "The urban tree cover and temperature disparity in US urbanized areas: Quantifying the effect of income across 5,723 communities". Urban tree cover provides benefits to human health and well-being, but previous studies suggest that tree cover is often inequitably distributed. Here, we use NAIP imagery to survey the tree cover inequality for Census blocks in US large urbanized areas, home to 167 million people across 5,723 municipalities and other places. We compared tree cover to summer surface temperature, as measured using Thematic Mapper imagery. In 92% of the urbanized areas surveyed, low-income blocks have less tree cover than high-income blocks. On average, low-income blocks have 15.2% less tree cover and are 1.5⁰C hotter (surface temperature) than high-income blocks. The greatest difference between low- and high-income blocks was found in urbanized areas in the Northeast of the United States, where low-income blocks often have at least 30% less tree cover and are at least 4.0⁰C hotter. Even after controlling for population density and built-up intensity, the association between income and tree cover is significant, as is the association between race and tree cover. We estimate, after controlling for population density, that low-income blocks have 62 million fewer trees than high-income blocks, a compensatory value of $56 billion dollars ($1,349/person). An investment in tree planting and natural regeneration of $17.6 billion would close the tree cover disparity for 42 million people in low-income blocks.

The European Copernicus Coastal Flood Awareness System (ECFAS) project will contribute to the evolution of the Copernicus Emergency Monitoring Service by demonstrating the technical and operational feasibility of a European Coastal Flood Awareness System. Specifically, ECFAS will provide a much-needed solution to bolster coastal resilience to climate risk and reduce population and infrastructure exposure by monitoring and supporting disaster preparedness, two factors that are fundamental to damage prevention and recovery if a storm hits.

The ECFAS Proof-of-Concept development will run from January 2021-December 2022. The ECFAS project is a collaboration between Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori IUSS di Pavia (Italy, ECFAS Coordinator), Mercator Ocean International (France), Planetek Hellas (Greece), Collecte Localisation Satellites (France), Consorzio Futuro in Ricerca (Italy), Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain), University of the Aegean (Greece), and EurOcean (Portugal), and is funded by the European Commission H2020 Framework Programme within the call LC-SPACE-18-EO-2020 - Copernicus evolution: research activities in support of the evolution of the Copernicus services.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme

Description of the containing files inside the Dataset.

The dataset was divided at European country level, except the Adriatic area which was extracted as a region and not on a country level due to the small size of the countries. The buffer zone of each data was 10km inland in order to be correlated with the new Copernicus product Coastal Zone LU/LC.

Specifically, the dataset includes the new Coastal LU/LC product which was implemented by the EEA and became available at the end of 2020. Additional information collected in relation to the location and characteristics of transport (road and railway) and utility networks (power plants), population density and time variability. Furthermore, some of the publicly available datasets that were used in CEMS related to the abovementioned assets were gathered such as OpenStreetMap (building footprints, road and railway network infrastructures), GeoNames (populated places but also names of administrative units, rivers and lakes, forests, hills and mountains, parks and recreational areas, etc.), the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS) and Global Human Settlement Population Grid (GHS-POP) generated by JRC. Also, the dataset contains 2 layers with statistics information regarding the population of Europe per sex and age divided in administrative units at NUTS level 3. The first layers includes information fro the whole Europe and the second layer has only the information regaridng the population at the Coastal area. Finally, the dataset includes the global database of Floods protection standars. Below there are tables which present the dataset.

Copernicus Land Monitoring Service	Resolution	Comment
Coastal LU/LC	1:10.000	A Copernicus hotspot product to monitor landscape dynamics in coastal zones
EU-Hydro - Coastline	1:30.000	EU-Hydro is a dataset for all European countries providing the coastline
Natura 2000	1: 100000	A Copernicus hotspot product to monitor important areas for nature conservation
European Settlement Map	10m	A spatial raster dataset that is mapping human settlements in Europe
Imperviousness Density	10m	The percentage of sealed area
Impervious Built-up	10m	The part of the sealed surfaces where buildings can be found
Grassland 2018	10m	A binary grassland/non-grassland product
Tree Cover Density 2018	10m	Level of tree cover density in a range from 0-100%

Joint Research Center	Resolution	Comment
Global Human Settlement Population Grid GHS-POP)	250m	Residential population estimates for target year 2015
GHS settlement model layer (GHS-SMOD)	1km	The GHS Settlement Model grid delineates and classify settlement typologies via a logic of population size, population and built-up area densities
GHS-BUILT	10m	Built-up grid derived from Sentinel-2 global image composite for reference year 2018
ENACT 2011 Population Grid (ENACT-POP R2020A)	1km	The ENACT is a population density for the European Union that take into account major daily and monthly population variations
JRC Open Power Plants Database (JRC-PPDB-OPEN)	-	Europe’s open power plant database
GHS functional urban areas (GHS-FUA R2019A)	1km	City and its commuting zone (area of influence of the city in terms of labour market flows)
GHS Urban Centre Database (GHS-UCDB R2019A)	1km	Urban Centres defined by specific cut-off values on resident population and built-up surface

Additional Data	Resolution	Comment
Open Street Map (OSM)	-	BF, Transportation Network, Utilities Network, Places of Interest
CEMS	-	Data from Rapid Mapping activations in Europe
GeoNames	-	Populated places, Adm. units, Hydrography, Forests, Hills/Mountains, Parks, etc.
Global Administrative Areas	-	Administrative areas of all countries, at all levels of sub-division
NUTS3 Population Age/Sex Group	-	Eurostat population by age ansd sex statistics interesected with the NUTS3 Units
FLOPROS		A global database of FLOod PROtection Standards, which comprises information in the form of the flood return period associated with protection measures, at different spatial scales

Disclaimer:

ECFAS partners provide the data "as is" and "as available" without warranty of any kind. The ECFAS partners shall not be held liable resulting from the use of the information and data provided.

This project has received funding from the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101004211

Rapid urbanization, while transforming people’s living environments, also brings a series of urban issues such as the urban heat island effect. The urban park is an effective means to alleviate the urban heat island effect in summer. How to make better use of the cold island effect formed by urban parks to improve the urban outdoor thermal environment is an important topic. This manuscript takes Xi’an as the research area, using remote sensing data as the data source and combining field surveys, to explore the cooling characteristics of the cold island effect in the urban built-up area. It is demonstrated that, the influencing factors of the cooling effect of urban park cold islands are summarized: the area and perimeter of the park, the area and perimeter of water bodies, and the area of trees are all positively correlated with the cooling effect. The surrounding building density and building plot ratio are also positively correlated with the cooling effect of the green space. A comprehensive scoring model for each influencing factor is established, and the principal component analysis method is used to determine the weight of each indicator on the cooling effect of park design elements, among which the area of green space parks has the greatest influence weight. The demand space for cold islands in Xi’an’s parks is analyzed, and optimization strategies and suggestions for improving the urban thermal environment are put forward from both inside and outside the park.

The GRID3 settlement extents characterizes building density into three (3) classes: built-up areas (bua_extents), small settlement areas (ssa_extents), and hamlets (hamlet_extents) (Inuwa 2014). These three classes of settlement agglomerations are presented below:Built-up areas (BUAs) are generally areas of urbanization with moderately-to-densely-spaced buildings and a visible grid of streets and blocks. Built-up areas are characterized as polygons containing 13 or more buildings across an area greater than or equal to 400,000 square meters. Small settlements (SSAs) are settled areas of permanently inhabited structures and compounds of roughly a few hundred to a few thousand inhabitants. The housing pattern in SSAs is an assemblage of family compounds adjoining other similar habitations. Small settlement areas are characterized as polygons containing 50 or more buildings across an area less than 400,000 square meters. Hamlets are collections of several compounds or sleeping houses in isolation from small settlements or urban areas. Hamlets are characterized as polygons containing between 1 and 49 buildings across an area less than 400,000 square meters.For full methodological details please explore the data release statement available for download here.Population AttributesThe associated population estimates for the Settlement Extents datasets are derived from two WorldPop high resolution data sources. The WorldPop Top-down constrained population estimates 2020 (Population) uses, for each country, the highest admin level official population totals of the 2000 and 2010 census rounds, that are publicly available and can be mapped to associated boundaries, and projects them to 2020. These projected values then disaggregated statistically to 100x100m resolution using a set of detailed geospatial datasets to disaggregate them to grid cell-based counts. The estimates are constrained to settlements based on the satellite-derived building footprint data from Maxar/ecopia for the 51 African countries, and based on a built settlement growth model of WorldPop for the remaining countries.The Population Counts / Constrained Individual countries 2020 UN adjusted (100m resolution) population estimates (Pop_UN_adj) recognizes that the United Nations produce their own estimates of national population totals. WorldPop, in order to provide flexibility to users, adjusted the number of people per pixel of its top-down constrained population estimates nationally to match the corresponding official United Nations population estimates (i.e. 2019 Revision of World Population Prospects).For more information about WorldPop's methods, see:● Methods for Gridded Population Estimate Datasets● Top-down estimation modelling: Constrained vs Unconstrained "Population Counts / Constrained Individual countries 2020 (100m resolution)" & "Population Counts / Constrained Individual countries 2020 UN adjusted (100m resolution)" derived from WorldPop.org.Suggested Data Set Citation: Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University and Novel-T. 2021. GRID3 Republic of Namibia Settlement Extents, Version 01.01. Palisades, NY: Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3). https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-m5ps-5t06. Accessed DAY MONTH YEAR

This dataset supplements the scientific article by Pierri-Daunt and Siedentop (2025), which introduces a classification system for 18 cities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), encompassing a total of 253 municipalities. It provides the dataset used for the classification, along with the cluster numbers assigned to each group. The dataset combines various socioeconomic, demographic, and spatial characteristics of built-up areas at two scales of analysis: the city–regional scale (Data.city.origin.3HC.csv) and the municipal scale (Data.munic.orig.3HC.csv). Its purpose is to classify, compare, and identify cities and municipalities with similar typological features. A complete description of the methodology and data sources can be found in README.txt and dataset_description_sources_information_PIerriDaunt_ISFULAC.pdf. We identified three primary categories. City scale: Cluster 1 (saturated and well-serviced cities); Cluster 2 (vulnerabilized and dense cities); Cluster 3 (low-service and fragmented cities); Municipal scale: Cluster 1 (central, infilling, dense and well-serviced municipalities); Cluster 2 (building up at the edge and vulnerabilized); Cluster 3 (expanding, marginalized and low-density).

The Global Human Footprint dataset of the Last of the Wild Project, version 2, 2005 (LWPv2) is the Human Influence Index (HII) normalized by biome and realm. The HII is a global dataset of 1 km grid cells, created from nine global data layers covering human population pressure (population density), human land use and infraestructure (built-up areas, nighttime lights, land use/land cover) and human access (coastlines, roads, navigable rivers).The Human Footprint Index (HF) map, expresses as a percentage the relative human influence in each terrestrial biome. HF values from 0 to 100. A value of zero represents the least influence -the "most wild" part of the biome with value of 100 representing the most influence (least wild) part of the biome.

This dataset contains data on urban form (the configuration of the built environment) for each census tract in the United States, encompassing density (destination access), land use diversity (entropy), road network properties, road network capacity relative to the surrounding population, and public transit access. Metrics are measured around the centroid of each census tract in multiple given radii. The data also contain other publicly available metrics for each census tract that may be helpful, such as each tract's associated city, zipcode, and county name, area and water area, and centroid coordinates. Certain measures resemble those available in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies' Smart Location database or were derived from them, while others were compiled using additional data sources and the statistical model presented in the associated main article. Specifically, the data presented here contain travel energy use indices for each census tract, reflecting the estimated difference in daily land-based mobility energy use per capita relative to the baseline (the U.S. average) as a result of that environment's particular urban form.

The High Resolution Layer on Imperviousness Density 2018 is a thematic product showing the sealing density in the range from 0-100% for the period 2018 (including data from 2017-2019) for the EEA-38 area and the United Kingdom. The production of the high resolution imperviousness layers is coordinated by EEA in the frame of the EU Copernicus programme.

The high resolution imperviousness products capture the percentage and change of soil sealing. Built-up areas are characterized by the substitution of the original (semi-) natural land cover or water surface with an artificial, often impervious cover. These artificial surfaces are usually maintained over long periods of time. A series of high resolution imperviousness datasets (for the 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018 reference years) with all artificially sealed areas was produced using automatic derivation based on calibrated Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). This series of imperviousness layers constitutes the main status layers. They are per-pixel estimates of impermeable cover of soil (soil sealing) and are mapped as the degree of imperviousness (0-100%). Imperviousness change layers were produced as a difference between the reference years (2006-2009, 2009-2012, 2012-2015, 2015-2018 and additionally 2006-2012, to fully match the CORINE Land Cover production cycle) and are presented 1) as degree of imperviousness change (-100% -- +100%), in 20m and 100m pixel size, and 2) a classified (categorical) 20m change product.

Data is provided as 10 meter rasters (fully conformant with the EEA reference grid) in 100 x 100 km tiles grouped according to the EEA38 countries and the United Kingdom.

More information about the product is available here: https://land.copernicus.eu/en/products/high-resolution-layer-imperviousness/imperviousness-density-2018.

The "Forest Proximate People" (FPP) dataset is one of the data layers contributing to the development of indicator #13, “number of forest-dependent people in extreme poverty,” of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) Global Core Set of forest-related indicators (GCS). The FPP dataset provides an estimate of the number of people living in or within 5 kilometers of forests (forest-proximate people) for the year 2019 with a spatial resolution of 100 meters at a global level.

For more detail, such as the theory behind this indicator and the definition of parameters, and to cite this data, see: Newton, P., Castle, S.E., Kinzer, A.T., Miller, D.C., Oldekop, J.A., Linhares-Juvenal, T., Pina, L. Madrid, M., & de Lamo, J. 2022. The number of forest- and tree-proximate people: A new methodology and global estimates. Background Paper to The State of the World’s Forests 2022 report. Rome, FAO.

Contact points:

Maintainer: Leticia Pina

Maintainer: Sarah E., Castle

Data lineage:

The FPP data are generated using Google Earth Engine. Forests are defined by the Copernicus Global Land Cover (CGLC) (Buchhorn et al. 2020) classification system’s definition of forests: tree cover ranging from 15-100%, with or without understory of shrubs and grassland, and including both open and closed forests. Any area classified as forest sized ≥ 1 ha in 2019 was included in this definition. Population density was defined by the WorldPop global population data for 2019 (WorldPop 2018). High density urban populations were excluded from the analysis. High density urban areas were defined as any contiguous area with a total population (using 2019 WorldPop data for population) of at least 50,000 people and comprised of pixels all of which met at least one of two criteria: either the pixel a) had at least 1,500 people per square km, or b) was classified as “built-up” land use by the CGLC dataset (where “built-up” was defined as land covered by buildings and other manmade structures) (Dijkstra et al. 2020). Using these datasets, any rural people living in or within 5 kilometers of forests in 2019 were classified as forest proximate people. Euclidean distance was used as the measure to create a 5-kilometer buffer zone around each forest cover pixel. The scripts for generating the forest-proximate people and the rural-urban datasets using different parameters or for different years are published and available to users. For more detail, such as the theory behind this indicator and the definition of parameters, and to cite this data, see: Newton, P., Castle, S.E., Kinzer, A.T., Miller, D.C., Oldekop, J.A., Linhares-Juvenal, T., Pina, L., Madrid, M., & de Lamo, J. 2022. The number of forest- and tree-proximate people: a new methodology and global estimates. Background Paper to The State of the World’s Forests 2022. Rome, FAO.

References:

Buchhorn, M., Smets, B., Bertels, L., De Roo, B., Lesiv, M., Tsendbazar, N.E., Herold, M., Fritz, S., 2020. Copernicus Global Land Service: Land Cover 100m: collection 3 epoch 2019. Globe.

Dijkstra, L., Florczyk, A.J., Freire, S., Kemper, T., Melchiorri, M., Pesaresi, M. and Schiavina, M., 2020. Applying the degree of urbanisation to the globe: A new harmonised definition reveals a different picture of global urbanisation. Journal of Urban Economics, p.103312.

WorldPop (www.worldpop.org - School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Southampton; Department of Geography and Geosciences, University of Louisville; Departement de Geographie, Universite de Namur) and Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University, 2018. Global High Resolution Population Denominators Project - Funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1134076). https://dx.doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/WP00645

Online resources:

GEE asset for "Forest proximate people - 5km cutoff distance"