Africa Outline, Integrated Terrain Units, Agric. Landuse, Soils, Vegetation

These datasets (Africa Outline, Agricultural Landuse, Africa Soils, Vegetation, Surface Hydrography, Hydrologic Basins, Desertification Hazard Model) are part of the UNEP/FAO/ESRI Database project that covers the entire world but focuses in this case on Africa. The maps were prepared by Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), USA. Most data for the database were provided by the Soil Resources, Management and Conservation Service, Land and Water Development Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Italy. The database was developed by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as part of a project initiated by UNEP. The base maps used were the FAO/UNESCO Soil Map of the World (1977) in Miller Oblated Stereographic projection, FAO Maps and Statistical Data by Administrative Unit and the Rand-McNally New International Atlas (1982) to clarify unit boundaries. All sources were re-registered to the basemap by comparing known features on the basemap and the source maps. The digitizing was done with a spatial resolution of 0.002. The maps were then transformed from inch coordinates to latitude/longitude degrees. The transformation was done using an unpublished algorithm developed by the US Geological Survey and ESRI to create coverage's for one-degree graticules. For details about each dataset, visit the individual entries.