Annual high-resolution global ambient population estimates from 1975 to 2024

Andrew Zimmer , Daniel Adams, Marie Urban

Gridded population data support assessments of human exposure, settlement change, infrastructure demand, and access to services, yet global datasets combining annual coverage over multiple decades with fine spatial resolution remain limited. LandScan Mosaic Time Series provides 50 annual estimates of global ambient population distribution at 3 arc-second resolution from 1975 through 2024. The series is anchored to the 2024 LandScan Mosaic surface, produced through a building-level population modeling workflow. Historical surfaces are reconstructed using annualized changes in built surface and derived first-level administrative population trajectories. Every layer, including 2024, is normalized to administrative targets scaled to annual country totals from the U.S. Census Bureau International Database. The dataset is distributed as 50 single-band Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs on an identical WGS84 grid, with values representing estimated persons per cell. Its common grid and methodology support fine-scale longitudinal analysis of ambient population distribution while documented validation and limitations guide appropriate reuse.