Using Land Use Data to Estimate the Population Distribution of China in 2000

Abstract

To control for the defects found in remote sensing-derived estimates of population distributions, this study created a new method for estimating the population density of China at a 1 × 1 km spatial resolution by combining remote sensing-derived land use with China residence polygon data. As a result, we obtained three sets of land use data (i.e., remote sensing-derived, China residence polygon, and a combination of the two) to estimate population. On the basis of these data, we developed both urban and rural population distribution models. The results demonstrated that this new method could improve the accuracy of population estimation.