Releases

All dataset releases are logged here by date. Only datasets carry version numbers — the UDC platform itself is not versioned. Each entry lists what changed and links to the relevant dataset pages.

2026-05

DDL Global Urban Boundaries — v0.1

Initial release of the DDL urban agglomeration boundary product. Covers all urban agglomerations globally with a population of at least 50,000 using the default threshold configuration. The methodology paper covering the full boundary construction method is forthcoming.

Datasets released in this package:

• DDL Global Urban Boundaries (ua_id grain) — one polygon per urban agglomeration, with name, population, country code, and area.
• DDL Global Urban Boundaries ADM1 Splits (ua_id × adm1_split_id grain) — agglomeration boundaries partitioned by GADM ADM1 units, available for UAs that span more than one ADM1 boundary.
• DDL Global Urban Boundaries ADM2 Splits (ua_id × adm2_split_id grain) — agglomeration boundaries partitioned by GADM ADM2 units, available for UAs that span more than one ADM2 boundary.

All three files are available from the Downloads page as global GeoPackages.

DDL Historical Urban Population — v0.1

Initial release of annual population totals for DDL urban agglomerations and their ADM1/ADM2 splits, covering 1975–2025. Built by running zonal statistics against the GHS-POP R2023A multitemporal population grid on the parent UA and UA-ADM split polygons, with linear interpolation between the five-year source epochs.

Dataset released in this package:

• DDL Historical Urban Population (ua_id × year grain) — annual pop_sum and pixel_count per agglomeration, joined to the boundary release by id and version.