Swiss land use statistics — main land-use domains by commune
bfs-land-use-communes
- Publisher
- OFS/BFS
- Access method
api- Table id
CH1.AREA/DF_AREA_NOAS 1.1.0- Licence
- opendata.swiss terms of use "terms_by": "Open use. Must provide the source."
- Coverage
- Geography communes of the current register (commune state of the dataflow, 1 January 2026 on 2026-11-01) · periods the latest survey period complete for Switzerland · from 2013-2018 · to 2013-2018
- Gaps
- One survey period only — the latest that is complete for Switzerland (2013–2018 on 2026-11-01). The fifth survey (2020–2025) is published canton by canton and is not used until it is complete, so that every commune on the map comes from the same survey. Lakes (9xxx) and the three communal-free areas are dropped.
- Used on
- STORY-04
- Known limits
- Sample survey on a 100 m grid interpreted from aerial photographs (bfs-land-use knownLimits): small communes have few sample points, so their areas and shares carry more sampling error. The aerial photographs of one period span several years (aerial_photo_years); settlement areas grew after them. Since August 2024 the BFS revises earlier surveys retroactively in the cantons of the current survey, so values can change between fetches.
- Verification
- verification date: 2026-11-01 · method: Fetched from stats.swiss (DF_AREA_NOAS, period A4 2013–2018, all regions). For each of the four domains the communes, lakes and communal-free areas add up to the national value (the fetcher's check). Commune areas (sum of the four domains) compared with the "Gesamtfläche in km²" of the BFS Regionalporträts 2021 (DAM 15864450) — Bern 5162 ha = 51.62 km², Lausanne 4138 ha = 41.38 km²; Zürich (8797 ha vs 87.93 km²) and Genève (1596 ha vs 15.92 km²) differ by 4 ha, within the revisions described in knownLimits. · checkedValue: 351 Bern 2013-2018: 2377 + 942 + 1721 + 122 = 5162 ha (Regionalporträts 2021: 51.62 km²); Σ communes + lakes + communal-free areas = CH for all four domains · checkedAgainst: https://dam-api.bfs.admin.ch/hub/api/dam/assets/15864450/master
- Processed file
- data/processed/bfs-land-use-communes.csv
How current is this data?
- Freshness
- Up to date
According to its update rhythm, no newer edition is expected yet.
- Period covered
- 2013–2018
- Last change of the data
- Last check of the source
- Update rhythm
- Irregular
Ledger note (in English): Periodic; a new period replaces the old one once the national value of all four domains is published.
- Votara checks the source
- Every week, and every day from 3 days before to 14 days after an announced publication date
The state is computed each time the site is built; this page shows it as of . Results of the accuracy checks
Transformations
- SDMX-CSV with labels: key 1+2+3+4..8100 to find the latest period with all four national domains, then key 1+2+3+4.<period>. (all regions of that period). Category ids as in bfs-land-use (NOAS04 codes 1–4, checked against the German labels). Kept: BFS numbers of the current register (data/processed/bfs-communes.csv), one row per commune with the four domains side by side. Script: scripts/fetch/bfs-land-use-communes.ts
- Values copied as published (hectares; each sample point of the 100 m grid stands for 1 ha). The fetcher checks that communes, lakes and communal-free areas add up to the national value of each domain.
- Derivation recipe (not stored in the CSV, Votara calculations to be labelled as such): commune area = settlement + agricultural + wooded + unproductive (the four domains cover the commune; large lakes are separate units); residents per km² = population of the latest STATPOP year (bfs-commune-population, joined to today's communes) ÷ (commune area ÷ 100); settlement share = settlement ÷ commune area. The area of a commune hardly changes between surveys (mergers are already applied in the dataflow), so the latest population is divided by the area of the latest complete survey. Script: src/lib/geo/density.ts