To provide estimates of urban and rural populations and land areas for the years 1990, 2000, 2015 for 234 countries and statistical areas with contiguous coastal elevations of less than or equal to 5m above sea level, 5-10m above sea level, and national totals using multiple updated data sources for comparative analysis.

To provide a time series of raster population data for ntegration with other data sets.

To provide a raster representation of urban areas (or urban mask) for use with GRUMP population grids or other data sets.

To provide land area data for use with GRUMPv1 population and urban data as well as a quantitative measure of resolution of the input spatial units for GRUMPv1.

To provide a time series of raster population density data for data integration.

To permit the summation of population values by country/territory and, in combination with other data layers, the summation of population values by irregular areas represented in the other data layers and country/territory.