New Data

New Data Release: GRID3 Nigeria Settlement Extents v4.0

March 16, 2026
Settlement blocks from the GRID3 Nigeria Settlement Extents v4.0 dataset, showing variation of block building density across Kano’s City, Nigeria.

CIESIN has produced GRID3 Nigeria Settlement Extents v4.0, a new geospatial dataset that maps settlements across Nigeria in greater detail. Beyond settlement extents, the dataset breaks built-up and small settlement areas into settlement blocks, offering a more detailed picture of how settlements are organized on the ground. The new version draws on roads, railways, rivers, settlement boundaries, building footprints, and remote-sensing inputs, with each block described through geometric, environmental, and building-related metrics. 

The dataset includes block-level summaries such as building counts and areas, building height measures from Google Open Buildings 2.5D Temporal data, and vegetation indicators including NDVI and EVI from Sentinel-2 imagery. It also includes simple block classifications that can help group places with similar characteristics for analysis, planning, and service delivery.

Settlement blocks from the GRID3 Nigeria Settlement Extents v4.0 dataset, showing variation of block mean NDVI across Kano’s City, Nigeria.

Version 4.0 also includes a substantial round of quality checks and refinements. As part of the update, 2,269 settlements from the earlier Version 3 dataset were removed after fieldwork and updated imagery confirmed they were false positives. The dataset is available in OGC GeoPackage format under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
 

Settlement blocks from the GRID3 Nigeria Settlement Extents v4.0 dataset, showing variation of building blocks across Kano’s City, Nigeria.

Portions of this news blurb were edited with the assistance of AI tools to improve clarity and readability. All content was reviewed and validated by the authors.