Dataset

Landsat & aerial imagery archive

Free & Open Data Bulk download API 1 source

The complete Landsat mission archive (satellites 1 through 9) plus aerial photography, declassified intelligence imagery and hyperspectral scenes, freely downloadable, the longest continuous medium-resolution satellite record for monitoring physical activity.

Dataset card

The Landsat & aerial imagery archive, distributed through USGS EarthExplorer, is a public-domain catalogue of satellite and aerial photographs of the Earth's land surface. It is maintained by the United States Geological Survey as a long-running Earth observation resource.

What this dataset contains

The archive combines Landsat satellite imagery with aerial photography holdings held by the USGS. Coverage spans multiple decades and is intended to support land-use mapping, environmental monitoring, and change-detection studies. Files are released under a public-domain licence, allowing redistribution and derivative analysis.

Structure and fields

EarthExplorer organises holdings by scene identifier, acquisition date, sensor type, and geographic footprint, with each image delivered as a geo-referenced raster file such as GeoTIFF. The catalogue schema additionally exposes metadata fields for cloud cover, path/row coordinates, and processing level. Detailed column-level schema documentation is not provided alongside the listing.

How analysts use it

Analysts commonly download Landsat scenes to construct time series of vegetation indices, urban expansion, and reservoir or mine footprints relevant to commodity and real-asset theses. Aerial imagery subsets are used to verify physical activity at industrial sites, agricultural regions, or infrastructure projects. Because the data are public domain, they are often combined with proprietary satellite feeds to augment coverage or extend historical baselines.

Documentation & references 2
  1. USGS EarthExplorer/Landsat & aerial imagery archive: listing on the provider website
  2. USGS EarthExplorer: official website

Further reading

All guides
  • How funds evaluate alternative data vendorsEvaluating alternative-data providers: research fit, provenance, historical timing, permitted use and the evidence needed for an informed purchasing decision.
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  • Free alternative data sourcesThe practical list of free alternative-data sources for investors: public filings, official statistics, satellite and earth observation, on-chain data, web archives and open registries, what each covers, what it costs in engineering effort, and where free data falls short.

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