Where to find Population Density (shp. or grid) for Europe?

Hunting Down Population Density Data for Europe: A Real Person’s Guide

So, you’re looking for population density data for Europe? You’re in the right place. Whether you’re mapping out the next big urban development, trying to figure out where to allocate resources, or just plain curious about where people are clustered, understanding population distribution is key. Forget dry, robotic data dumps; let’s dive into where you can actually find this stuff, and what to look for.

First stop: Eurostat. Think of them as the official number-crunchers for the European Union. They’re the go-to source for harmonized population data across the EU. What does that even mean? Basically, they make sure all the data is collected in the same way across different countries, so you can actually compare apples to apples. They’ve got these incredibly detailed population grids, derived straight from the EU Census Programme, giving you a bird’s-eye view of how people are spread out across member states and even those in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

What’s cool about Eurostat? Well, their data comes in these handy 1 km² grids. Imagine overlaying a giant checkerboard on Europe – each square tells you how many people live there. This is gold for cross-border analyses. And it’s not just about total population; they break it down by all sorts of things – sex, age, whether people are employed, and even where they were born. Super useful, right?

You can snag this data in all sorts of formats, from GeoTIFF (that’s a raster format, if you’re into GIS) to CSV (good old comma-separated values, perfect for spreadsheets). They’ve even got GeoPackage and GeoParquet formats, which are fancy ways of saying “we play nice with all your mapping software.” Best part? Eurostat gives away their population grid data for free on their website. Yep, free! They even have interactive maps and printable stuff, if you’re more of a visual person. And get this – they dropped the Census 2021 population grid just recently, in June 2024. Talk about fresh data! Plus, they keep the historical stuff around, too, so you can see how things have changed over time, with data from 2006, 2011, and 2018.

Next up, let’s talk about the European Environment Agency (EEA). These folks are all about the intersection of people and planet. They provide data and maps that link population density to environmental factors. Think about it: where people live affects the environment, and vice versa. The EEA often uses Corine Land Cover data to show how population distribution relates to land use. It’s like a puzzle, putting together where people are and how they’re using the land. Their population density data is often super detailed, down to 100 meters in GeoTiff format, especially when combined with Corine Land Cover info. Finding the data can be a bit of a treasure hunt, though. Some of it’s right on the EEA website, but other bits might be hiding in the Copernicus program or other data portals.

Don’t forget about the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Yes, that NASA. They’re not just about space; they care about Earth, too! SEDAC runs the Gridded Population of the World (GPW) dataset. This is a global dataset, but it includes Europe, of course. It estimates population density at a pretty fine resolution – about 1 km near the equator. GPWv4 tries to model how people are spread out across the globe on a continuous surface. You can get data for multiple years – 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. The raster datasets come in ASCII (plain text) and GeoTIFF formats, and some are even in netCDF format, if you’re into that. You can find the GPW data through the Earthdata Search portal.

A few other places to check out:

• Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL): They’ve got raster datasets showing population distribution and density, measured as people per cell. You can get data at 250m and 1km resolution for various years like 1975, 1990, 2000, and 2015.
• Open Data Science Europe: This platform focuses on the degree of urbanization, classifying areas based on population density using a 1 km² grid.
• Trading Economics: If you’re looking for historical data, forecasts, and projections for population density in the EU, sourced from the World Bank, this is your place.

Okay, so you’ve got all these options. How do you choose? Think about a few things:

• Resolution: How detailed do you need to be? A higher resolution (like 100m) gives you more detail but needs more processing power.
• Time: Is the data recent enough? Eurostat’s 2021 Census grid is the freshest out there.
• Format: Can your software handle the data format?
• Coverage: Does the dataset cover the area you’re interested in?

Finding the right population density data can feel like a quest, but with these resources in your toolkit, you’re well on your way. Happy mapping!