Marking a significant advancement in settlement mapping for data-driven development across sub-Saharan Africa, CIESIN is pleased to announce the release of a new collection of settlement data for the region, in partnership with GRID3. The two organizations have been collaborating closely to produce, validate, and utilize essential spatial datasets on population, settlements, subnational boundaries, and critical infrastructure in the sub-Saharan region. This open-access data release captures over 9 million settlements, spanning 49 countries and 3 small island territories.
The GRID3 Settlement Extents Version 3.0 is a geographical representation of populated areas throughout sub-Saharan Africa. These extents are obtained by combining open data on: building footprints, settlements, and other covariates such as roads, land use/land cover and elevation; subsequently, modeling the probability of 3-arc second (or ~100 meter) grid cells to be settled; and finally, delineating polygons that group grid cells together into settled areas. Datasets are released on a country-basis and include two main data outputs: a spatial polygon layer representing settled areas; and a spatial point layer depicting the centroids of grid cells classified as settled. For more detailed technical information, please refer to the data release notes. The current version represents the third iteration of GRID3 Settlement Extents in sub-Saharan Africa. CIESIN’s first release of settlement extent data was in 2020.
In addition, CIESIN and GRID3 have recently released a number of datasets specifically for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These include: Settlement Names Version 3.0, Health Facilities Version 3.0, Health Areas Version 3.0, and Health Zones Version 3.0.
Start downloading and exploring these data sets at the GRID3 Data Hub.
