Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — Area in Northern America
Northern America: Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — Area was 12,219 1000 ha in 2022. ▲ Rising
Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — Area in Northern America, 1992–2022
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Measured in 1000 ha.
Analysis
Northern America recorded 12,219 1000 ha for artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area in 2022. That is the highest value across all 31 years on record.
That represents a change of up 1.2% on the previous year and up 13.7% over ten years.
Over the whole period, artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area in Northern America peaked at 12,219 1000 ha in 2022 and was at its lowest, 6,619 1000 ha, in 1992.
That places Northern America 5th out of 26 groups with data for 2022, putting it in the top quarter.
The long-run direction has been consistently rising across the 31 years of available data.
Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — Area in Northern America, year by year
| Year | 1000 ha | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 6,619 1000 ha | — |
| 1993 | 6,827 1000 ha | +3.1% |
| 1994 | 7,034 1000 ha | +3.0% |
| 1995 | 7,242 1000 ha | +3.0% |
| 1996 | 7,448 1000 ha | +2.8% |
| 1997 | 7,628 1000 ha | +2.4% |
| 1998 | 7,793 1000 ha | +2.2% |
| 1999 | 7,933 1000 ha | +1.8% |
| 2000 | 8,083 1000 ha | +1.9% |
| 2001 | 8,479 1000 ha | +4.9% |
| 2002 | 8,775 1000 ha | +3.5% |
| 2003 | 8,983 1000 ha | +2.4% |
| 2004 | 9,130 1000 ha | +1.6% |
| 2005 | 9,386 1000 ha | +2.8% |
| 2006 | 9,646 1000 ha | +2.8% |
| 2007 | 9,879 1000 ha | +2.4% |
| 2008 | 10,060 1000 ha | +1.8% |
| 2009 | 10,234 1000 ha | +1.7% |
| 2010 | 10,402 1000 ha | +1.6% |
| 2011 | 10,555 1000 ha | +1.5% |
| 2012 | 10,743 1000 ha | +1.8% |
| 2013 | 10,994 1000 ha | +2.3% |
| 2014 | 11,220 1000 ha | +2.1% |
| 2015 | 11,341 1000 ha | +1.1% |
| 2016 | 11,529 1000 ha | +1.7% |
| 2017 | 11,705 1000 ha | +1.5% |
| 2018 | 11,803 1000 ha | +0.8% |
| 2019 | 11,916 1000 ha | +1.0% |
| 2020 | 11,916 1000 ha | +0.0% |
| 2021 | 12,069 1000 ha | +1.3% |
| 2022 | 12,219 1000 ha | +1.2% |
Averages by decade
| Decade | Average | Lowest | Highest | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990s | 7,315 1000 ha | 6,619 1000 ha | 7,933 1000 ha | 8 |
| 2000s | 9,266 1000 ha | 8,083 1000 ha | 10,234 1000 ha | 10 |
| 2010s | 11,221 1000 ha | 10,402 1000 ha | 11,916 1000 ha | 10 |
| 2020s | 12,068 1000 ha | 11,916 1000 ha | 12,219 1000 ha | 3 |
Countries ranked near Northern America
More environment data for Northern America
- Historical exposure to drought — Land soil moisture anomaly -2.23 Percentage change (2025)
- Historical exposure to drought — Cropland soil moisture anomaly -3.25 Percentage change (2025)
- Standard Deviation, annual growth rate 0 % change on previous year (2025)
- Standard Deviation 0.466 °C (2025)
- Temperature change 2.49 °C (2025)
- Recovered paper — Production 43.74 million t (2024)
- Total fibre furnish — Production 92.54 million t (2024)
- Cropland — Share in Agricultural land 40.32 % (2024)
- Nutrient potash K2O (total) — Use per value of agricultural production 11.92 g/Int$ (2024)
- Country area — Area 2.59 million 1000 ha (2024)
Frequently asked questions
- What is artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area in Northern America?
- Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area in Northern America was 12,219 1000 ha in 2022, according to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
- What is the highest artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area recorded in Northern America?
- The highest recorded value was 12,219 1000 ha in 2022.
- What is the lowest artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area recorded in Northern America?
- The lowest recorded value was 6,619 1000 ha in 1992.
- How does Northern America rank for artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area?
- Northern America ranks 5th out of 26 groups with data for 2022.
- Is artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — area rising or falling in Northern America?
- Over the last ten years it is up 13.7%. The long-run trend across the full record is rising.
- Where does this Northern America data come from?
- The figures come from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, published as part of Artificial surfaces (including urban and associated areas) — Area from CCI_LC. Statizoid updates them automatically from the source API.
Download this data
CSV · JSON — 31 observations, free to reuse under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO (FAO).
About this data
The FAOSTAT domain on Land Cover data under the Agri-Environmental Indicators section contains land cover information organized by the land cover classes of the international standard system for Environmental and Economic Accounting Central Framework (SEEA CF). The land cover information is compiled from publicly available Global Land Cover (GLC) maps: a) MODIS land cover types based on the Land Cover Classification System, LCCS; b) The European Spatial Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) annual land cover maps produced by the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL)-Geomatics and now under the European Copernicus Program; c) The annual land cover maps which were produced under the European Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS) (CGLS land cover, containing discrete land cover categorization), with spatial resolution 100m; and d) the WorldCover maps of the European Space Agency, produced at 10m resolution.