GPWv4: Global Population by Age and Sex, 2010

Gridded Population of the World Version 4 provides global estimates of human population counts and densities by age and sex for the year 2010. Its raster data is derived from national censuses and registers, offering a consistent spatial framework at multiple resolutions from 1 km to 1 degree. This dataset enables the integration of detailed demographic characteristics with other geospatial data for analysis.

Use Cases

• Modeling population exposure to environmental hazards based on age and sex distributions.
• Integrating demographic data with land use or climate models using the consistent raster format.
• Analyzing regional age structures for social science or economic planning.
• Downscaling national census statistics to a uniform, high-resolution global grid.

Strengths

• Provides global coverage at a native resolution of 30 arc-seconds (~1 km at the equator).
• Includes data aggregated to five distinct spatial resolutions (2.5 arc-minute to 1 degree) for processing flexibility.
• Derived from authoritative national census and population register sources.

Limitations

• The primary data year is 2010, which may not reflect current population distributions.
• Age and sex proportion data sometimes has a coarser spatial resolution than the total population estimates to which it is applied.
• Metadata for size, row count, and license is inconsistently reported or missing across platforms.

Provenance

Source

Center for International Earth Science Information Network - CIESIN - Columbia University, supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Collection Method

Proportions of males and females in 5-year age groups from census years were calculated and applied to 2010 total population estimates, then converted to raster format.

Time Range

2010

Freshness

2026-04-10 19:32:57.183080 (dataverse, datagov)

Geography

Global