Detailed land-use map of European cities (Copernicus)
What it measures. Classifies what the land is and how it is used across Europe's functional urban areas, distinguishing housing, roads, parks, industry and more down to a quarter-hectare.
How it's made. ESA Copernicus creates this Urban Atlas layer from satellite data, refreshed roughly every three years.
How & where you'd use it. A standard reference for urban planning, transport studies, and tracking how land is allocated in and around European cities.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2018-01-01 → ongoing
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
The Urban Atlas Land Cover and Land Use product provides detailed land cover and land use information for Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) in Europe. The product has a Minimum Mapping Unit (MMU) of 0.25 hectares (2,500 m²) and a Minimum Mapping Width (MMW) of 10 meters. It is part of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) and covers urban areas across Europe with a 3-yearly temporal repeat rate. The data is provided in flatgeobuf format with EPSG:3035 projection.
Get the data
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client
cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
collections=["clms_urban-atlas_land-cover-use_europe_V025ha_vector_static_v01"], # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60), # your area (W,S,E,N)
datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items()) # then read assets with rioxarray / xarrayBrowsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.
Official links
- Open data source Copernicus STAC