General Identification of Colombia's Agricultural Frontier at 1:100,000 Scale

Colombia's agricultural frontier boundary map identifies rural land separating agricultural areas from ecologically important zones and areas where farming is legally excluded. The dataset, version 4.1, was generated using ArcGIS software and a multi-stage process integrating land cover data, family farming areas, and legal exclusions like national parks and páramos. It provides polygon-level data for administrative units across the country.

Use Cases

• Analyze the distribution of agricultural frontier area by Departamento and Municipio using the Área (ha) column.
• Map the agricultural boundary elements (Elemento) across different municipal codes (Código municipio).
• Join with other administrative datasets using the Código departamento and Código municipio columns for regional analysis.
• Calculate total agricultural frontier area per department by aggregating the Área (ha) values grouped by Departamento.

Strengths

• Detailed geospatial processing methodology is documented across five stages.
• Integrates multiple authoritative sources including land cover data from IDEAM and legal zonings.
• Includes a Consecutivo column likely providing a unique identifier for each polygon.

Limitations

• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, limiting suitability assessment for large-scale analysis.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality, including coordinate reference system, requires manual inspection after download.
• The last updated date is 2026-05-18, which is in the future, suggesting a possible metadata error regarding freshness.

Provenance

Source

www.datos.gov.co (Colombian open data portal).

Collection Method

Generated using ArcGIS software, integrating land cover data, family farming areas, and subtracting legal exclusions like protected areas.

Time Range

Process incorporates land cover data from 2010-2012 and legal information current to November 2022.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-18 17:31:01; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Colombia, at a national scale of 1:100,000.