Measuring Land Use Changes by (Machine) Learning from Historical Maps

Clement Gorin, Pierre-Philippe Combes, Gilles Duranton and Laurent Gobillon

No 20946, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We provide a highly granular account of land-use change across France, comparing two snapshots taken approximately 160 years apart. Built or paved land increased from about 0.7% of the territory in 1860 to 5.2% in 2020. Over the same period, cropland contracted by 20 percentage points to 42%, and meadows nearly disappeared. Only a small fraction of these declines is explained by land development; instead, the shares of forests and pastures roughly doubled. Although recent policies aim to limit land development, our results suggest that the spatial dispersion of developed land may pose a greater concern than its total share.

Keywords: historical maps; Computer vision (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N53 Q15 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-12
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