What the World Grows: Farmland and Crops on One Map, from CROPGRIDS and FAOSTAT

I map what the world grows at the finest scale that open global data allow, and set it beside six decades of change in how much land is farmed. The crop map uses CROPGRIDS v1.08, a 0.05 degree global dataset of harvested and physical area for 173 crops around 2020, of which I use the 34 largest and best-known; together they cover 87% of the world's harvested area in FAOSTAT. Country trends use FAOSTAT land use and crop statistics from 1961. The world farms 4,682 million hectares, 36% of its land, but two thirds of this is pasture; cropland covers 1,583 million hectares and has grown by 18% since 1961, with the largest gains in Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia and China and the largest loss in the United States. Wheat, maize, rice and soya beans cover 50% of harvested area, and soya beans, oil palm and maize account for 48% of the growth in harvested area since 1961. On a 0.1 degree grid, half of the harvested area of the 34 crops lies on 6.4% of the world's land, and wheat is the leading crop on 26% of farmed squares. Location quotients pick out national specialities from Saudi dates to British field beans. I discuss how much detail the data can honestly support: about 10 km for a single recent year, and the country for change over time. Interactive version: https://maps.tristanhotham.com/crop-map/. Data and code: https://github.com/Tristan-Hotham/crop-map.