CIESIN: Center for International Earth Science Information Network

Project Highlights

Version two of the Population, Landscape, and Climate Estimates data set, PLACE II, has been released as part of SEDAC’s National Aggregates of Geospatial Data Collection. The aim is to provide country-level measures of spatial characteristics of 228 nations to researchers for whom national aggregates are more useful than GIS data. PLACE II estimates the number of people (head counts and percentages) and the land area (square kilometers and percentages) represented within each class of a number of demographic, physical, biological, and climatic variables for each country around the world, for the years 1990 and 2000. These variables include biomes, climate zones, coastal proximity zones, elevation zones, and population density zones. The full data array of nearly 300 variables, tabulated by country, is available for download in Excel spreadsheet format, together with supporting documentation. The PLACE II map collection displays examples of input variables and country dynamics via more than 40 maps at global, continental, and detailed scales.

Product Applications

The PLACE II product will enable an interested investigator to ask and better understand questions such as:

  • Which countries have the highest percentages of their population living within 100 or 200 km of a marine coast?
  • Which global biome supports the majority of people in South America?
  • What climatic conditions do most of the U.S. population live in?

For more information on the methodology used in the creation of PLACE II, and how this differs from PLACE I, please see the methods section of this Web site.