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Description

The MCD12Q1 Version 6 data product was decommissioned on July 31, 2023. Users are encouraged to use the MCD12Q1 Version 6.1 data product.

The Terra and Aqua combined Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land Cover Type (MCD12Q1) Version 6 data product provides global land cover types at yearly intervals (2001-2020), derived from six different classification schemes listed in the User Guide. The MCD12Q1 Version 6 data product is derived using supervised classifications of MODIS Terra and Aqua reflectance data. The supervised classifications then undergo additional post-processing that incorporate prior knowledge and ancillary information to further refine specific classes.

Layers for Land Cover Type 1-5, Land Cover Property 1-3, Land Cover Property Assessment 1-3, Land Cover Quality Control (QC), and a Land Water Mask are provided in each MCD12Q1 Version 6 Hierarchical Data Format 4 (HDF4) file.

Known Issues

  • The "units" field is missing in the metadata, however, this information can be found in the table above or on page 5 of the User Guide.
  • Known issues are described on pages 3 and 4 of the User Guide.
  • For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

Version Description

The following changes and improvements were implemented for inputs to MODIS Version 6 land cover data products: (1) Version 5 used five classification schemes whereas Version 6 uses six classification schemes, including an entirely new classification scheme based on the Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO),  (2) New gap-filled spectro-temporal features developed by applying smoothing splines to the Nadir Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)-Adjusted Reflectance (NBAR) time series. This change results in significant changes between land cover classifications in Version 5 and Version 6 data, (3) Algorithm used in Version 6 includes a post-processing Hidden Markov Model (HMM) that reduces spurious year-to-year variation in class labels, (4) Algorithm refinements were implemented in upstream MODIS data used as inputs, such as the cloud mask, surface reflectance, and NBAR data products, (5) The value of "Water" in the IGBP classification scheme has changed from "0" to "17", (6) The data product should not be used to determine post-classification land cover change between years due to the uncertainty in the land cover labels for any one year. More information can be found on page 2 of the User Guide, and (7) File size is smaller due to HDF internal compression.

Product Summary

Platforms
Terra ,
Aqua
Instruments
MODIS
Spatial Extent

N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180

Spatial Resolution
500 Meters x 500 Meters
Spatial Reference System(s)
MODIS Sinusoidal Tiling System
Location
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
GEODETIC
Temporal Extent
2001-01-01 to 2020-12-31
Temporal Resolution
1 Year
Data Partner
Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) ,
MODIS Adaptive Processing System, Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, Science and Exploration Directorate, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA (NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/MODAPS)
Concept ID
C2763289443-LPCLOUD
Data State
DEPRECATED
Number of Files/Granules
0
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Land Use/Land Cover Classification

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

Friedl, M., & Sulla-Menashe, D. (2019). MCD12Q1 MODIS/Terra+Aqua Land Cover Type Yearly L3 Global 500m SIN Grid V006 [Data set]. NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD12Q1.006 Date Accessed: 2026-05-14

File Naming Convention

MCD12Q1.A2003001.h16v00.006.2018144112435.hdf

The file name begins with the Product Short Name (MCD12Q1) followed by the Julian Date of Acquisition formatted as AYYYYDDD (A2003001), the Tile Identifier which is horizontal tile and vertical tile provided as hXXvYY (h16v00), the Version of the data collection (006), the Julian Date and Time of Production designated as YYYYDDDHHMMSS (2018144112435), and the Data Format (hdf).

Documents

Publications Citing This Dataset

Filters
Title Year Author Topic
Multifactor Spatial Downscaling of Satellite Precipitation Based on Vegetation Index and Elevation Zeng, Zhaozhao, Peleg, Nadav, Chen, Haonan, Zhuo, Li Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Total Surface Precipitation Rate
Impact Matters: Detection and Early Warning of Agriculturally Impactful Mohammadi, Koushan, Wang, Guiling Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Surface Pressure, Heat Flux, Longwave Radiation, Shortwave Radiation, Surface Temperature, Humidity, Evapotranspiration, Surface Winds, Rain, Precipitation Rate, Snow, Soil Moisture/Water Content, Soil Temperature, Land Surface Temperature, Snow Water Equivalent, Runoff
A framework for disaggregating remote-sensing cropland into rainfed and irrigated classes at continental scale Owusu, Afua, Kagone, Stefanie, Leh, Mansoor, Velpuri, Naga Manohar, Gumma, Murali Krishna, Ghansah, Benjamin, Thilina-Prabhath, Paranamana, Akpoti, Komlavi, Mekonnen, Kirubel, Tinonetsana, Primrose, Mohammed, Ismail Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A global assessment of the effects of solar farms on albedo, vegetation, and land surface temperature using remote sensing Xu, Zhengjie, Li, Yan, Qin, Yingzuo, Bach, Eviatar Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Albedo, Anisotropy
A global dataset of carbon pumping by the world's largest tropical rivers Salerno, Luca, Giulio Tonolo, Fabio, Camporeale, Carlo Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Fire Ecology, Biomass Burning, Wildfires, Fire Occurrence, Burned Area
A Deep-Learning and Transfer-Learning Hybrid Aerosol Retrieval Algorithm Fu, Disong, Shi, Hongrong, Gueymard, Christian A., Yang, Dazhi, Zheng, Yu, Che, Huizheng, Fan, Xuehua, Han, Xinlei, Gao, Lin, Bian, Jianchun, Duan, Minzheng, Xia, Xiangao Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A Consistency Analysis of Land Surface Temperatures Retrieved From Zhong, Shouyi, Li, Hua, Bian, Zunjian, Liu, Qiang, Du, Yongming, Cao, Biao, Xiao, Qing Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A new framework for evaluating dust emission model development using dichotomous satellite observations of dust emission Hennen, Mark, Chappell, Adrian, Webb, Nicholas P., Schepanski, Kerstin, Baddock, Matthew C., Eckardt, Frank D., Kandakji, Tarek, Lee, Jeffrey A., Nobakht, Mohamad, von Holdt, Johanna Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Reflectance, Albedo, Anisotropy
A New Machine-Learning-Based Calibration Scheme for MODIS Thermal Xu, Jiafei, Liu, Zhizhao, Hong, Guan, Cao, Yunchang Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A new assessment framework to forecast land use and carbon storage under different SSP-RCP scenarios in China Guo, Wei, Teng, Yongjia, Li, Jing, Yan, Yueguan, Zhao, Chuanwu, Li, Yongxing, Li, Xiang Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A machine learning approach for modeling the occurrence of the major intermediate hosts for schistosomiasis in East Africa Tabo, Zadoki, Breuer, Lutz, Fabia, Codalli, Samuel, Gorata, Albrecht, Christian Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Land Surface Temperature, Emissivity, Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A novel AMSR2 retrieval algorithm for global C-band vegetation optical depth and soil moisture (AMSR2 IB): Parameters' calibration, evaluation and inter-comparison Wang, Mengjia, Ciais, Philippe, Frappart, Frederic, Tao, Shengli, Fan, Lei, Sun, Rui, Li, Xiaojun, Liu, Xiangzhuo, Wang, Huan, Wigneron, Jean-Pierre Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Soil Temperature, Soil Moisture/Water Content, Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Leaf Characteristics, Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Vegetation Water Content, Skin Temperature
A novel approach for retrieving GPP of evergreen forest regions of India using random forest regression Sarkar, Deep Prakash, Uma Shankar, B., Ranjan Parida, Bikash Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Adverse Effects of Ozone Pollution on Net Primary Productivity in the Long, X., Han, Y., Wang, Q. Y., Li, X. K., Feng, T., Wang, Y. C., Wang, Y., Zhang, S. L., Han, Y. M., Li, G. H., Tie, X. X., Cao, J. J., Chen, Y. Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity
Accurate and Efficient Numerical Simulation of Land Models Using SUMMA Spiteri, Raymond J., Van Beusekom, Ashley E., Klenk, Kyle, Zolfaghari, Reza, Trim, Sean J., Knoben, Wouter J. M., Ireson, Andrew M., Clark, Martyn P. Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A performance evaluation of random forest, artificial neural network, and support vector machine learning algorithms to predict spatio-temporal land use-land cover ... Mutale, Bwalya, Withanage, Neel Chaminda, Mishra, Prabuddh Kumar, Shen, Jingwei, Abdelrahman, Kamal, Fnais, Mohammed S. Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A systematic review of urban heat island and heat waves research (1991 - Cheval, Sorin, Amihaesei, Vlad-Alexandru, Chitu, Zenaida, Dumitrescu, Alexandru, Falcescu, Vladut, Irasoc, Adrian, Micu, Dana Magdalena, Mihulet, Eugen, Ontel, Irina, Paraschiv, Monica-Gabriela, Tudose, Nicu Constantin Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A Sequence-to-Sequence Transformer Model for Satellite Retrieval of Zhang, Luo, Gu, Haoran, Li, Zhengqiang, Liu, Zhenhai, Zhang, Ying, Xie, Yisong, Zhang, Zihan, Ji, Zhe, Li, Zhiyu, Yan, Chaoyu Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A novel framework for multiple thermokarst hazards risk assessment and controlling environmental factors analysis on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Lou, Peiqing, Wu, Tonghua, Yin, Guoan, Chen, Jie, Zhu, Xiaofan, Wu, Xiaodong, Li, Ren, Yang, Sizhong Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Leaf Characteristics, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), RADAR IMAGERY, Terrain Elevation, Topographical Relief Maps, Digital Elevation/Terrain Model (DEM)
A QGIS Plugin for GIS-based Multicriteria Decision Analysis: an Application of Developing Alternative Future Land-Use Scenarios in Ghana Chen, Changjie, Guo, Ziyi, Judge, Jasmeet Land Use/Land Cover Classification
A multi-variable calibration framework at the grid scale for integrating streamflow with evapotranspiration data to improve the simulation of distributed hydrological model Guo, Xiao, Wu, Zhiyong, Fu, Guobin, He, Hai Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Leaf Characteristics, Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar)
A Multisource Data Approach for Change and Disturbance Mapping of Ontario's Clay Belt Towards More Accurate Carbon and Emissions Estimation Ituen, Ima, Hu, Baoxin Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Fire Ecology, Biomass Burning, Wildfires, Fire Occurrence, Burned Area
An Unstructured Mesh Generation Tool for Efficient High-Resolution Fan, Hanwen, Xu, Qingchen, Bai, Fan, Wei, Zhongwang, Zhang, Yonggen, Lu, Xingjie, Wei, Nan, Zhang, Shupeng, Yuan, Hua, Liu, Shaofeng, Li, XianXiang, Li, Xueyan, Dai, Yongjiu Land Use/Land Cover Classification
Analysis of desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) suitability in Yemen: an integrated evaluation based on MaxEnt and spacetime cube approaches Huang, Linsheng, Kong, Fanchu, Lu, Qibao, Huang, Wenjiang, Dong, Yingying, Zhao, Jinling, Shang, Juncheng, Zhang, Hansu Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Reflectance, Terrain Elevation, RADAR IMAGERY, Topographical Relief Maps
An integrated framework for jointly assessing spatiotemporal dynamics of Wang, Yuan, Wang, Han, Yao, Fei, Stouffs, Rudi, Wu, Jiansheng Land Use/Land Cover Classification
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