From your home to skyscrapers: A map revealing every building around the world

 

A 3D map

From your home to skyscrapers: A map revealing every building around the world

You can now explore every building on the planet, from historic homes in Edinburgh to towering skyscrapers in Shanghai.
A new three-dimensional map known as the "Global Building Atlas" has made this possible, showing 2.75 billion buildings with stunning accuracy. It was created at the Technical University of Munich in Germany, using a combination of 800,000 satellite images taken in 2019 and artificial intelligence algorithms to predict missing building volumes based on neighbors' heights.

Professor Xiao Xiang Zhu, the project leader, said: "Three-dimensional information of buildings provides a more accurate picture of urban expansion and living standards compared to traditional two-dimensional maps. Thanks to these models, we see not only the building's area, but also its size, which allows for a deeper understanding of living conditions."

Explore the world from your window

Anyone can use the interactive map to search for their home or any other location around the world. Once the address is entered into the search bar, a 3D model of the area appears using satellite data, with an accuracy up to 30 times better than similar databases for urban areas.
The map has been met with tremendous interest since its launch, with the site recording more than 280,000 visits in just a few days, sometimes causing slow loading times for the forms.

Scientific and strategic importance

Producing an accurate map of buildings worldwide was previously a major challenge, as it required specialized satellite laser scanning, which is difficult to cover globally with high precision. Combining laser scanning with artificial intelligence has provided an innovative solution to fill the gaps and produce a comprehensive global map.

This data can be used to study urban development, natural disaster planning, and new city planning.
Analyses indicate that Asia is home to 1.22 billion buildings, about half of the world's buildings, followed by Africa with 540 million, and Europe with 403 million.

While the Americas contain 295 and 264 million buildings respectively, Oceania has only 14 million.
Measuring social and economic development in a new way
Researchers used building size data to create a new indicator of economic and social development, namely building size per capita. The more space allocated per person, the higher the expected standard of living in the country.
For example, Finland tops the list in Europe with 3,900 cubic meters of buildings per capita, while Greece, which has suffered a prolonged economic recession, comes in at a rate six times lower.

Future prospects

Researchers hope the map will help in planning housing and public facilities in the areas most in need, and can also be used in natural disaster planning by identifying the areas most at risk.
The German Aerospace Center is already working on studying how to use the "Global Building Atlas" as part of its work to support disaster response around the world.