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Land use

Land use Catalonia. 2022
Value (hectares) Percentage (%)
Forest surface 2,042,017 63.6
Wood 1,123,757 35.0
Scrubland 702,295 21.9
Other vegetation 215,965 6.7
Areas without vegetation 128,036 4.0
Cropland 822,193 25.6
Rainfed crops 548,271 17.1
Irrigated crops 273,922 8.5
Urban, urbanisable and infrastructures 218,955 6.8
Total 3,211,201 100.0
Source: Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda.
Land use Spain. 2022
Value (hectares) Percentage (%)
Forest surface .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available
Areas without vegetation .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available
Cropland .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available
Urban, urbanisable and infrastructures .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available
Total .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available
Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment.
Note: A partir del 2005, les "àrees sense vegetació" estan incloses en el sòl "urbà, urbanitzable i infraestructures".
(..) Confidential data, low reliability or not available.

Last update: November 3, 2023.

Methodological note

Research into the general land distribution in Catalonia summarises the data from the 1-T survey on land areas occupied by crop cultivation, carried out annually by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, Food and Natural Environment in each municipality, with the subsequent aggregation of the data to yield the computation per county and for all of Catalonia.

In 2007 improvements were introduced for the production of these statistics, adding new classification criteria based on geographic information tools (SIGPAC), which particularly impacted the classification what is considered other vegetation, which is now largely redistributed as forest or scrubland, while to a lesser degree it meant less area devoted to cultivation. These changes signify that the data are not necessarily comparable to previous years.

Forest land consists of forested areas, occupied by woods and tree farms; woodlands, occupied by shrubland, thickets, brush, heath, bushes, sub-shrubs and forest/shrubland transitional areas; and areas with other vegetation, such as prairies, pastures, grassland, wetland vegetation and barren pasture.

Crop fields consist of parcels of land planted with annual or multi-year species: arable or woody crops, dry-farmed and irrigated land, and land left fallow.

Areas without vegetation, which include bare soils, rocky outcrops, escarpments, rocky ground, gullies, sand banks and beaches, snowfields, lakes, reservoirs and rivers.

Urban areas and infrastructure correspond to land occupied by cities and towns, low-density urban areas, industrial and commercial areas and road networks.

Available tables

  • Land use
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