LandScan

Originally conceived for use by U.S. military and intelligence communities, the LandScan web application and population datasets, produced by East View Geospatial with data from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, are useful for various reasons including: spatial data analysis, humanitarian aid and relief, disease modeling, market growth, and sustainable development/environmental protection. Older datasets, back to 2000, are archived as new versions are made available. There are three main audiences of LandScan: researchers who download and use the datasets; researchers who use the WMS and WCS services; and those who use the web platform. This review focuses mainly on the web app.

Search functionalities include the ability to drill down to the pixel level, i.e., one square kilometer grid units; to quickly get population counts for an area on the world map by pointing and clicking; and to get population counts for an area using the polygon drawing function.