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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: 2026-05-18

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
Interspecific competition shapes bird species' distributions along Freeman, Benjamin G., Miller, Eliot T., StrimasMackey, Matthew Land Use/Land Cover Classification
Machine learning and global vegetation: random forests for downscaling and gap filling van Jaarsveld, Barry, Hauswirth, Sandra M., Wanders, Niko Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Mapping specific groundwater nitrate concentrations from spatial data using machine learning: A case study of chongqing, China Liang, Yuanyi, Zhang, Xingjun, Gan, Lin, Chen, Si, Zhao, Shandao, Ding, Jihui, Kang, Wulue, Yang, Han Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Long-Term Satellite Monitoring of Various Types of Wildfires and Wildfire-Induced Emissions of Climate-Active Gases and Aerosols in Russia and in Its Large Regions Bondur, V. G., Zima, A. L., Feoktistova, N. V. Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Fire Occurrence, Surface Thermal Properties, Land Surface Temperature, THERMAL ANOMALIES, Fire Ecology, Biomass Burning, Wildfires, Burned Area
Long-term trends of vegetation greenness under different urban Zhong, Qikang, Li, Zhe Land Use/Land Cover Classification
Loss and recovery of vegetation productivity in response to extreme Li, Meng, Cui, Rui, Bu, Lingjia, Yang, Yuting Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)
Numerical Weather Forecast and Multi-Meteorological Data Fusion Based on Artificial Intelligence Yang, Yuanjian, Wang, Shuai, Zheng, Wenjian, Zhou, Shaohui, Duan, Zexia, Wang, Mengya Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Photosynthesis, Primary Production, Vegetation Productivity
Optimizing malaria vector control in the Greater Mekong Subregion: a systematic review and mathematical modelling study to identify desirable intervention ... Wang, Yuqian, Chitnis, Nakul, Fairbanks, Emma L. Land Use/Land Cover Classification
On the importance of plant phenology in the evaporative process of a semi-arid woodland: could it be why satellite-based evaporation estimates in the ... Zimba, Henry M., Coenders-Gerrits, Miriam, Banda, Kawawa E., Hulsman, Petra, van de Giesen, Nick, Nyambe, Imasiku A., Savenije, Hubert H. G. Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Leaf Area Index (LAI), Leaf Characteristics, Fraction Of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fapar), Reflectance, Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Evapotranspiration, Latent Heat Flux, Terrain Elevation, Digital Elevation/Terrain Model (DEM), Topographical Relief Maps
A Synoptic-Scale Comparison of Satellite Yukon River Mouth Temperature to In-Situ and Reanalysis Data During 20032020 Spratt, Rachel, Vazquez, Jorge, Carroll, Dustin Geopotential Height, Altitude, Surface Temperature, Upper Air Temperature, Dew Point Temperature, Air Temperature, Cloud Top Temperature, Atmospheric Winds, Surface Winds, U/V Wind Components, Upper Level Winds, U/V Wind Components, Vertical Wind Velocity/Speed, Atmospheric Pressure, Sea Level Pressure, Cloud Top Pressure, Sea Level Pressure, Surface Pressure, Specific Humidity, Total Precipitable Water, Cloud Liquid Water/Ice, Atmospheric Water Vapor, Atmospheric Ozone, Oxygen Compounds, Boundary Layer Winds, Skin Temperature, Land Use/Land Cover Classification, Wind Speed
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
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
An Insight Into the Internal Consistency of MODIS Global Leaf Area Index Zhang, Xingjian, Yan, Kai, Liu, Jinxiu, Yang, Kai, Pu, Jiabin, Yan, Guangjian, Heiskanen, Janne, Zhu, Peng, Knyazikhin, Yuri, Myneni, Ranga B. Land Use/Land Cover Classification
An integrated framework for jointly assessing spatiotemporal dynamics of Wang, Yuan, Wang, Han, Yao, Fei, Stouffs, Rudi, Wu, Jiansheng Land Use/Land Cover Classification
An investigation on potential dispersal of airborne pollen over China and their impact on climate as ice nuclei using RegCMpollen Song, Rong, Wang, Tijian, Li, Shu, Zhuang, Bingliang, Li, Mengmeng, Xie, Min, Luo, Chuanxiu, KilifarskaNedialkova, Natalya Andreeva 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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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
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