World - Land area (sq. km)

The value for Land area (sq. km) in World was 129,949,300 as of 2021. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 129,956,600 in 2016 and a minimum value of 129,734,300 in 1996.

Definition: Land area is a country's total area, excluding area under inland water bodies, national claims to continental shelf, and exclusive economic zones. In most cases the definition of inland water bodies includes major rivers and lakes.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization, electronic files and web site.

See also:

Year Value
1961 129,856,800
1962 129,856,800
1963 129,856,800
1964 129,856,800
1965 129,856,800
1966 129,856,800
1967 129,856,800
1968 129,856,700
1969 129,856,700
1970 129,856,700
1971 129,856,700
1972 129,856,600
1973 129,856,600
1974 129,856,100
1975 129,855,600
1976 129,855,400
1977 129,855,200
1978 129,855,200
1979 129,855,200
1980 129,854,900
1981 129,855,000
1982 129,854,800
1983 129,854,700
1984 129,853,200
1985 129,853,100
1986 129,853,200
1987 129,853,100
1988 129,853,100
1989 129,852,100
1990 129,852,100
1991 129,854,000
1992 129,854,100
1993 129,749,400
1994 129,737,700
1995 129,734,800
1996 129,734,300
1997 129,803,700
1998 129,777,700
1999 129,784,400
2000 129,765,400
2001 129,764,300
2002 129,762,100
2003 129,762,000
2004 129,889,500
2005 129,889,500
2006 129,885,400
2007 129,885,200
2008 129,869,100
2009 129,867,500
2010 129,869,700
2011 129,870,200
2012 129,864,700
2013 129,863,400
2014 129,863,000
2015 129,880,700
2016 129,956,600
2017 129,956,100
2018 129,949,300
2019 129,949,300
2020 129,949,300
2021 129,949,300

Development Relevance: Land area is particularly important for understanding an economy's agricultural capacity and the environmental effects of human activity. Innovations in satellite mapping and computer databases have resulted in more precise measurements of land and water areas. Population, land area, income, and output are basic measures of the size of an economy. They also provide a broad indication of actual and potential resources. Land area is therefore used as one of the major indicator to normalize other indicators.

Limitations and Exceptions: The data are collected by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations through annual questionnaires. The FAO tries to impose standard definitions and reporting methods, but complete consistency across countries and over time is not possible. The data collected from official national sources through the questionnaire are supplemented with information from official secondary data sources. The secondary sources cover official country data from websites of national ministries, national publications and related country data reported by various international organizations.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Total land area does not include inland water bodies such as major rivers and lakes. Variations from year to year may be due to updated or revised data rather than to change in area.

Aggregation method: Sum

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Environment Indicators

Sub-Topic: Land use