SIGRID — Global 1×1 km sampling grid

Download the grid by country

The grid is published pre-cut for each country, so you do not need to download tiles and clip them yourself. Every plot is tagged with the province (ADM1NM) and district (ADM2NM) it falls in, based on the UN 2023 administrative boundaries.

Browse the per-country ZIP files Country index for Google Earth (KMZ)

Each country ZIP contains:

<Country>_1x1km.csv — the full 1×1 km grid with the sub-grid columns (see data format) plus the province/district of every plot.
<Country>_2x2km.csv … <Country>_100x100km.csv — one CSV per sampling density. They are exact subsets of the 1×1 km file with consistent CE_IDs, so an assessment started at a coarse density can later be intensified with the finer files without re-sampling.
<Country>_plot_counts_by_district.csv — number of plots per province/district at each density.
A README describing how the files were generated.

For some countries the UN 2023 boundaries carry no district names; those are published as <Country>_grids_no_districts.zip and their plots have no province/district columns.

Collect Earth tip: Google Earth degrades with files above ~2,000 placemarks. For larger files use Tools → Utilities → Divide large CSV files in Collect Earth — aggregating by the ADM1NM or ADM2NM column works well.

Download the grid by 10×10 degree tile

The full grid is served as 10×10 degree tiles (the files listed on this page). The easiest way to locate a tile is through Google Earth: open the KMZ below, click the tile you need and use the download link in its popup. Tiles near the equator hold more than 1.2 million plots, so their ZIPs contain several CSV files.

Tile index for Google Earth (KMZ)

Find the tile for a coordinate (WGS84 decimal degrees):

Latitude Longitude

Or pick a tile directly — rows are latitude bands, columns are the western longitude of each 10° tile:

	180°W	170°W	160°W	150°W	140°W	130°W	120°W	110°W	100°W	90°W	80°W	70°W	60°W	50°W	40°W	30°W	20°W	10°W	10°E	20°E	30°E	40°E	50°E	60°E	70°E	80°E	90°E	100°E	110°E	120°E	130°E	140°E	150°E	160°E	170°E
80°N – 70°N	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
70°N – 60°N	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
60°N – 50°N	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
50°N – 40°N	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
40°N – 30°N	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
30°N – 20°N	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
20°N – 10°N	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
10°N – 0°	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
0° – 10°S	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
10°S – 20°S	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
20°S – 30°S	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
30°S – 40°S	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
40°S – 50°S	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
50°S – 60°S	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
60°S – 70°S	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170
70°S – 80°S	-180	-170	-160	-150	-140	-130	-120	-110	-100	-90	-80	-70	-60	-50	-40	-30	-20	-10	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100	110	120	130	140	150	160	170

Plain list of all 576 tile files (for scripting / wget)

Data format

Each tile CSV looks like this (sub-grid columns shortened for readability):

CE_ID	yCoordinate	xCoordinate	grid_1	grid_2	grid_3	…	grid_50	grid_100
2790_8986	59.9949504	29.9851232	true	true	false	…	false	false
2790_8987	59.9949504	29.9672064	true	false	false	…	false	false
2790_8988	59.9949504	29.9492864	true	true	true	…	false	false

CE_ID is the unique, stable ID of the plot, composed of two numbers Y_X counted from the starting point of the grid generation at 85° North, 169° West. E.g. 2000_3300 means 2,000 km South and 3,300 km West of that starting point. The ID is identical across all densities and tiles.
yCoordinate / xCoordinate are the latitude / longitude of the plot centre (WGS84, EPSG:4326).
The grid_N columns tell which sub-grids the plot belongs to. Every plot belongs to sub-grid 1 (1×1 km); 1/4 of the plots belong to the 2×2 km sub-grid, 1/9 to the 3×3 km, 1/16 to the 4×4 km, and so on for spacings of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 25, 30, 50 and 100 km. Columns can be combined to derive other spacings — e.g. the 18×18 km sub-grid is the set of plots where both grid_9 and grid_6 are true.

Because the IDs are consistent across densities, a Collect Earth assessment can be intensified: start with the 8×8 km sub-grid and, as resources allow, continue with the remaining plots of the 4×4 km sub-grid, then 2×2 km, down to the full 1×1 km grid — without ever re-assessing a plot.

More information

The methodology, source code (MIT licence) and issue tracker live in the SIGRID repository on GitHub. SIGRID is developed by the Open Foris initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).