Releases

Each data module is versioned independently. Website maps, charts and summary measures are updated in place. See each dataset reference for the module version selected by this website and its matching documentation. The notes below describe historical packages.

Legacy v0.1#

DDL Global Urban Boundaries — v0.1

Initial release of the DDL city boundary product. Covers all cities 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 (keyed by ua_id) — one polygon per city, with name, population, country code, and area.
• DDL Global Urban Boundaries ADM1 Splits (keyed by ua_id × adm1_split_id) — city boundaries partitioned by GADM ADM1 units, available for cities that span more than one ADM1 boundary.
• DDL Global Urban Boundaries ADM2 Splits (keyed by ua_id × adm2_split_id) — city boundaries partitioned by GADM ADM2 units, available for cities that span more than one ADM2 boundary.

All three files are available from the data catalog as global GeoPackages.

DDL Historical Urban Population — v0.1

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

Dataset released in this package:

• DDL Historical Urban Population (keyed by ua_id × year) — annual pop_sum and pixel_count per city, joined to parent boundaries by id at the PARENT boundary level.