The Organization of the Atlas

The atlas is divided into five parts, two main map sections, an urban, national and regional data section, and two map sections available only online.

The first map section contains pairs of urban land cover maps, one circa 1990 and one circa 2000, of a global sample of 120 cities.

The second map section contains composite maps of a global historical sample of 30 cities, showing the expansion of their urban land cover from 1800 to 2000.

In both sections, the maps are shown on left-hand pages while right-hand pages provide numerical data as well as graphs on various metrics associated with the maps, information that makes it possible to compare cities in terms of their metric values on key attributes of urban expansion.

A third section of the atlas provides several urban, national and regional data sets in Excel format that summarize the spatial metrics calculated from the maps in the first two sections.

A fourth section of the atlas provides the Geographic Information System files used to create the maps of the global sample of 120 cities and the global historical sample of 30 cities.

A fifth section of the atlas provides an urban land cover map of the universe of 3,646 cities, that had populations in excess of 100,000 in the year 2000 with associated information on their population, urban land cover, and average density in that year. This urban land cover map is in a kml format which can be viewed with Google Earth.