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

Raw multispectral satellite imagery, top of atmosphere (Copernicus)

Sentinel-2 Level-1C
land ESA ESA Copernicus AWS Earth Search active
In plain English

What it measures. Multispectral images of the land delivered in roughly 110-km map tiles, recording how much sunlight is reflected at the top of the atmosphere before haze and air effects are removed.

How it's made. Made by ESA Copernicus from the Sentinel-2 optical instrument, projected onto a map using an elevation model and delivered as Level-1C top-of-atmosphere reflectance.

How & where you'd use it. An input image that many analysts further correct themselves; used for land monitoring, vegetation, and as the starting point for surface-reflectance products.

What's measured

CopernicusSentinelEUESASatelliteGlobalImageryReflectance

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2015-06-27 → 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 Level-1C product is composed of 110x110 km2 tiles (ortho-images in UTM/WGS84 projection). Earth is subdivided on a predefined set of tiles, defined in UTM/WGS84 projection and using a 100 km step. However, each tile has a surface of 110x110 km² in order to provide large overlap with the neighbouring. The Level-1C product results from using a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to project the image in cartographic geometry. Per-pixel radiometric measurements are provided in Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) reflectances along with the parameters to transform them into radiances.

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-l1c"],   # 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.
earthsearch_access.pyAWS Earth Search · no login
# AWS Earth Search — anonymous, no login (cloud-optimized on S3)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://earth-search.aws.element84.com/v1")
items = cat.search(
    collections=["sentinel-2-l1c"],
    bbox=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),   # your area (W,S,E,N)
    datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
).item_collection()
# open assets straight from S3 with rioxarray / stackstac — no credentials
Also mirrored on AWS Earth Search — the same data, cloud-optimized on public S3, anonymous (no login at all).