http://www.globallandcover.com/home/Enbackground.

aspx
GlobeLand30 refers to the land cover of the earth between latitude 80N to 80S. P
resently, our website has provided the browsing and downloading services for Glo
beLand30-2010 (GlobeLand30-2010) in baseline year of 2010. The brief information
of this data product is as follows.
1.Images and Auxiliary Data
The images utilized for GlobeLand30 classification are multispectral images with
30 meters, including the TM5 and ETM + of America Land Resources Satellite (Lan
dsat) and the multispectral images of China Environmental Disaster Alleviation S
atellite (HJ-1). Besides multispectral images, plenty of Auxiliary data are also
used in the process of data production such as sample collection and classifica
tion, etc. They mainly contains: the existing land cover data (global and region
al), MODIS NDVI, global geographic information, global DEM, thematic data (globa
l mangrove forest, wetland and glacier, etc.) and online resources (Google Earth
, Bing Map, OpenStreetMap and Map World) and so on.
2. Classification Scheme
The classification system includes 10 land cover types, namely cultivated land,
forest, grassland, shrubland, wetland,water bodies, tundra, artificial surfaces,
bareland, permanent snow and ice. Please classification scheme is as follows:
1) Cultivated Land. Lands used for agriculture, horticulture and gardens, includ
ing paddy fields, irrigated and dry farmland, vegetation and fruit gardens, etc.
2) Forest. Lands covered with trees, with vegetation cover over 30%, including d
eciduous and coniferous forests, and sparse woodland with cover 10 - 30%, etc.
3) Grassland. Lands covered by natural grass with cover over 10%, etc.
4) Shrubland. Lands covered with shrubs with cover over 30%, including deciduous
and evergreen shrubs, and desert steppe with cover over 10%, etc.
5) Water bodies. Water bodies in the land area, including river, lake, reservoir
, fish pond, etc.
6) Wetland. Lands covered with wetland plants and water bodies, including inland
marsh, lake marsh, river floodplain wetland, forest/shrub wetland, peat bogs, m
angrove and salt marsh, etc.
7) Tundra. Lands covered by lichen, moss, hardy perennial herb and shrubs in the
polar regions, including shrub tundra, herbaceous tundra, wet tundra and barren
tundra, etc.
8) Artificial surfaces. Lands modified by human activities, including all kinds
of habitation, industrial and mining area, transportation facilities, and interi
or urban green zones and water bodies, etc.
9) Bareland. Lands with vegetation cover lower than 10%, including desert, sandy
fields, Gobi, bare rocks, saline and alkaline lands, etc.
10) Permanent snow and ice. Lands covered by permanent snow, glacier and icecap.
3. Data Composition and Format
GlobeLand30 data adopts raster data format for storage, with the non-destructive
GeoTIFF compression format and the 256 indexed color pattern of the 8 Bit. The
data consist of 5 parts, namely classification result file, coordinate informati
on file, map setting file of classification image, metadata file and illustrativ
e file.
4. Data Organization
GlobeLand30 data adopts WGS84 coordinate system, UTM projection, 6-degree zoning
and the reference ellipsoid is WGS 84 ellipsoid. According to different latitud
e situations, 2 methods are adopted to organize the data tiles. Within the area
of 60N and 60S, the data tile is implemented according to the size of 5 (latitude)
* 6 (longitude); within the area of 60 to 80 degrees north and south of the equator
, the data tile is implemented according to the size of 5 (latitude) * 12 (longitu
de) and the projection is conducted according to the central meridian of 6zone wi
th an odd number.
There are 853 data tiles in the whole world in total and the covering situation
of specific picture is shown as Figure 1.