2020 Land Cover of Canada

Land cover information is essential for a wide range of environmental applications, including climate impact assessment and adaptation, emergency response, and wildlife habitat monitoring. In Canada, a 2008 user survey identified that the most practical format for land cover data is a nationwide map with a 30 m spatial resolution, updated every five years. To meet this need, the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) has been producing 30 m resolution land cover maps since 2010, with updates released in 2015 and 2020. These datasets also serve as Canada’s contribution to the 30 m Land Cover Map of North America, developed collaboratively by government agencies in Mexico, the United States, and Canada through the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS). The classification system used in these maps is designed for consistency across North America. It follows a two-level hierarchy based on the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS), consisting of 12 classes at Level I and 19 classes at Level II. Of the 19 Level II classes, 15 are applicable to Canada and are included in the national land cover dataset. Tropical vegetation classes (specifically classes 3, 4, 7, and 9) are either absent or occur only minimally in Canada and are therefore excluded from the national dataset. Canada’s land cover maps are generated using observations from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) Landsat sensor. An accuracy assessment based on 832 randomly distributed samples indicates that the latest dataset achieves 86.9% overall accuracy, with no marked spatial inconsistencies.

• Land Cover of Canada - Cartographic Product Collection

• NALCMS — The North American Land Change Monitoring System

Datasets available for download

• 2020 Land Cover of CanadaTIFF
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• 2020 Land Cover of Canada / Couverture...WMS
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• 2020 Land Cover of Canada / Couverture...WMS
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• NALCMS — The North American Land Change...HTML
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• Class IndexPDF
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• NALCMS — The North American Land Change...PDF
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• Canada
• Form Descriptors
• Geographical maps
• Land Cover
• Landsat
• Mid-latitude
• Nature and Environment
• North America
• Northern Hemisphere
• Reflectance
• Remote Sensing
• Science and Technology
• Western Hemisphere

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (54%)
• Maturity Level 2 (38%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:18 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:18 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.	Geoscientific Information
Title Title for the Dataset.	2020 Land Cover of Canada
Description A description of the dataset.	Land cover information is essential for a wide range of environmental applications, including climate impact assessment and adaptation, emergency response, and wildlife habitat monitoring. In Canada, a 2008 user survey identified that the most practical format for land cover data is a nationwide map with a 30 m spatial resolution, updated every five years. To meet this need, the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) has been producing 30 m resolution land cover maps since 2010, with updates released in 2015 and 2020. These datasets also serve as Canada’s contribution to the 30 m Land Cover Map of North America, developed collaboratively by government agencies in Mexico, the United States, and Canada through the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS). The classification system used in these maps is designed for consistency across North America. It follows a two-level hierarchy based on the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS), consisting of 12 classes at Level I and 19 classes at Level II. Of the 19 Level II classes, 15 are applicable to Canada and are included in the national land cover dataset. Tropical vegetation classes (specifically classes 3, 4, 7, and 9) are either absent or occur only minimally in Canada and are therefore excluded from the national dataset. Canada’s land cover maps are generated using observations from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) Landsat sensor. An accuracy assessment based on 832 randomly distributed samples indicates that the latest dataset achieves 86.9% overall accuracy, with no marked spatial inconsistencies. Land Cover of Canada - Cartographic Product Collection NALCMS — The North American Land Change Monitoring System
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Canada Form Descriptors Geographical maps Land Cover Landsat Mid-latitude Nature and Environment North America Northern Hemisphere Reflectance Remote Sensing Science and Technology Western Hemisphere
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2022-08-01
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/ee1580ab-a23d-4f86-a09b-79763677eb47
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Natural Resources Canada | Ressources naturelles Canada
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Government of Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, [email protected]
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.	[email protected]
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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