Mapping Agricultural Landuse

One of my favorite maps from last year was Bert Spaan's Netherland's Building Age Map. His map, created for the Waag website, visualized the age of a staggering 9,866,539 buildings in the Netherlands.

All of the buildings in the Netherlands are colored on the map by their age of construction. You can even click on any of the nearly 10 million buildings to view their exact year of construction. When you select a building on the map you can also view details about its land area and function.


Bert Spaan has now created another map for Waag, which visualizes rural land use in the Netherlands after World War II. Mansholt, Landscape in Perspective is a story map which explores how the rural landscape in the Netherlands changed during Sicco Mansholt's term as Minister for Agriculture.

Sicco Mansholt was a Dutch politician who became Minister of Agriculture after the Second World War. While Minister of Agriculture Mansholt revolutionized agriculture in the Netherlands and initiated land reclamation in many areas of the country.

As you progress through the story of Mansholt's initiatives as Minister of Agriculture you can view maps of some of the rural landscapes which saw dramatic change under his term of office. The maps include a land use layer which allow you to view the agricultural or recreational use for each parcel of land. The land parcels on the map are colored to indicate the type of crop which they are used for.