Definitions
Land statistics use a handful of terms that sound alike and mean different things. These are the ones the numbers on this site depend on.
- Agricultural land
- The sum of arable land, land under permanent crops, and permanent meadows and pastures. This is what the word “farmland” means on this site.
- Arable land
- Land under temporary crops, temporary meadows, market and kitchen gardens, and land temporarily fallow. About 1.4 billion hectares worldwide — see arable.land.
- Permanent crops
- Crops that stay in the ground for years: orchards, vineyards, coffee, cocoa, rubber, nut and olive trees.
- Permanent meadows and pastures
- Land used for five years or more to grow herbaceous forage, cultivated or wild. By area this is the largest part of agricultural land — roughly two thirds of it.
- Land area
- A country’s total area excluding inland water bodies and offshore claims. “% of land area” divides by this figure.
- Hectare
- 10,000 square metres; 2.471 acres. One square kilometre is 100 hectares.
What the figure does not tell you
“Agricultural” describes use, not quality. Extensive rangeland in a dry country and intensively farmed lowland both count hectare for hectare.
The line between permanent pasture and natural grassland is drawn differently from country to country, which makes the pasture component the least comparable part of the series.
Countries report the numbers themselves, to different standards and with different delays. Small year-to-year movements are often revisions rather than events.