The dataset contains maps of the main classes of agricultural land use (dominant crop types and other land use types) in Germany, which have been produced annually at the Thünen Institute beginning with the year 2017 on the basis of satellite data. The maps cover the entire open landscape, i.e. the agriculturally used area (UAA) and e.g. uncultivated areas. The map was derived from dense time series of Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Landsat 8 and additional environmental data. Map production is based on the methods described in Blickensdörfer et al. (2022).

The map extent covers all areas in Germany that are defined as agricultural land, small woody features, heathland or peatland according to ATKIS Basis-DLM 2020 (Geobasisdaten: © GeoBasis-DE / BKG (2020)). Post-processing of the maps included a sieve filter as well as a ruleset for the reduction of non-plausible areas using the Basis-DLM.

Data can be downloaded or directly accessed at Zenodo via https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10617623

• Fernerkundung
• Landnutzung
• landwirtschaftliche Anbauflächen

The data provide the basis for the Thünen Earth Observation Atlas.

Creation of raster maps:

Blickensdörfer L, Schwieder M, Pflugmacher D, Nendel C, Erasmi S, Hostert P (2022) Mapping of crop types and crop sequences with combined time series of Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 data for Germany. REMOTE SENSING OF ENVIRONMENT 269:112831.  doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112831