The Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) is a center within the Earth Institute at Columbia University. CIESIN works at the intersection of the social, natural, and information sciences, and specializes in on-line data and information management, spatial data integration and training, and interdisciplinary research related to human interactions in the environment.

New Data Set Improves National Estimates of Population, Landscape, and Climate Characteristics

Map of coastal proximity zones in South America. PLACE III provides land area and urban and rural population estimates for people living within 200km, 100km, 10km, or 5km of their country’s coastline.

Version 3 of the Population, Landscape, and Climate Estimates data set (PLACE III) has been released as part the National Aggregates of Geospatial Data Collection, produced by the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) operated by CIESIN. PLACE III provides national-level estimates of resident population and land area in relation to the environmental characteristics of their location (for example, by biome, climate zone, coastal proximity, and elevation) in a tabular format. Population estimates are available for 1990, 2000, and 2010 for 232 statistical areas (countries and other territories recognized by the United Nations). New features in version 3 are separate estimates for urban and rural populations and a pivot table to facilitate data selection and analysis.

The PLACE III data set is especially useful for those who are not familiar with specialized geospatial software and methods. The data set is organized so that users can quickly find the specific countries and variables of interest. It may be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet or as a comma-separated file (CSV) that can be opened by any text editor. Spreadsheet users may filter data by country, urban or rural classification, and other categories such as geoRegion (a geographic entity defined by the UN, similar to continent), geoSubregion (regions smaller than continents but larger than countries), and income group or lending category (World Bank global classifications of poverty and lending attractiveness).

Population and land area estimates have been generated for a variety of themes, including biomes of the world, climate classifications and predictions, elevation levels, distance from the coast, and population density zones. PLACE III facilitates comparative research at the national level by providing access to a range of useful summary variables on such questions as approximately how many people live within 10 kilometers of the coastline in South American countries; roughly how many rural Africans live in deserts and xeric shrublands; or how populations are distributed by elevation in southern Asia. Data from previous versions of PLACE have been used and cited in a number of scientific articles in both the natural and social sciences.