Soil Landscapes of Canada: Soil Order Classification

Ten soil orders form the highest level of the Canadian System of Soil Classification. This hierarchical system, developed by the Soil Classification Working Group in 1998, is maintained by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The data was last updated on 2026-05-26.

Use Cases

• Map soil distribution across Canada based on the ten recognized soil orders.
• Analyze hierarchical soil classification relationships from orders to series.
• Integrate soil order data with other land cover datasets for environmental modeling.
• Study agricultural land suitability based on general soil type classifications.

Strengths

• Based on a recognized national classification system (Canadian System of Soil Classification).
• Provides data at the most general level of a hierarchical soil taxonomy.
• Published by a federal government agency (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Freshness should be verified as the last update date is in the future (2026-05-26).

Provenance

Source

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-26 16:01:39.537622

Geography

Canada