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Full catalog/sentinel-2-gri-l1c-gcp
sentinel-2-gri-l1c-gcp·dataset

Reference image chips for precise alignment (Copernicus)

Sentinel-2 GRI L1C GCP
land ESA ESA Copernicus
In plain English

What it measures. A library of small red-band image patches anchored at known ground control point locations, filtered for quality, used as reliable reference markers.

How it's made. Made by ESA Copernicus from the Sentinel-2 Global Reference Image, selecting Level-1C image chips at control-point locations through radiometric and geometric filtering.

How & where you'd use it. An internal geometric reference used to accurately position and correct Sentinel-2 imagery; not a viewing product for the public.

What's measured

ECESAEUGlobalSentinelSentinel-2GCP

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2015-06-23 → 9999-12-31
  • 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 Sentinel-2 GRI L1C GCP STAC collection is a database of L1C-geometry image chips (B04, red band) anchored at Ground Control Point (GCP) locations, derived from the Multi-Layer L1B GRI using radiometric and geometric filtering.

Get the data

copernicus_access.py
# 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=["sentinel-2-gri-l1c-gcp"],   # 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 / xarray
Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.