Proportion of land use classes Land use composition

The maps show, using maize and permanent grassland as examples, the proportions of land determined from satellite data in relation to the total agricultural land area in Germany. In the presentation, the area shares, which are determined for 100 ha hexagons, are aggregated at the level of soil-climate regions and shown as an average for the entire coverage period from 2017 to 2023.

Maize (grain maize, including CCM + forage maize) accounts for around 14% of the total agricultural area in Germany, with a cultivation area of approximately 2.5 million ha (2023). The map reflects the regions most suitable for maize cultivation. The largest areas are found in the north, in the Geest regions of Schleswig-Holstein and the North-West German Lowlands, as well as in southern Germany in the Upper Rhine Graben and the Danube/Inn Valley.

Permanent grassland covers approximately 4.7 million ha, accounting for around 28.5% of the utilized agricultural area. The map shows the grassland-dominated regions, such as the Alpine foothills and the forage-growing regions of the North-West German Lowlands and Schleswig-Holstein. 
 

The  presentation of the nationwide annual land shares for maize and permanent grassland reveals fundamental trends for both classes. Whilst the land shares for maize fluctuate relatively strongly, the share of permanent grassland in Germany is fairly stable, with a slight decrease over the data collection period from 2017 to 2023. 

The calculation of the indicators and trends is based on the nationwide, wall-to-wall mapping of agricultural land use using dense time series of Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8/9 Earth observation satellite data. In a first step, the main crop types (including grassland and other land cover classes) are identified for each image pixel from the satellite data. The methodology is based on an adaptation of the approach described in Pham et al. (2024). For the calculation of the indicators, pixel values are aggregated into homogeneous areas. The delineation of field boundaries is also based on remote sensing data and follows the methodology described by Tetteh et al. (2023).

The agricultural land use maps are freely available at: https://eodata.thuenen.de/.

For further information on the calculation of the indicators, see the indicator sheet.