In my GIS-geo-enviro courses I teach the concepts of imagery comparisons (classes, spatial resolution, etc) and I have created the following ArcGIS Online map that you are welcome to look at to compare these two layers (plus the Sentinel-2 Level 2A imagery) with bookmarks in Lakeview, IA and Decorah IA (two of my favorite towns) and the US-Canada border.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=73b2a2f3da634673839814264312fb0e
Note that because I have the Sentinel-2 layer in the map above, it will require you to sign in and have certain permissions in ArcGIS Online. If you don’t have those permissions or a sign in, and want to visualize the comparisons, see below with a few screen captures:
I hope this is helpful! Keep in mind that I created this as a GIS educator and Geographer; I am not a land use analyst as many of you are, so any further details on how people use or evaluate these data sets will be much appreciated.
Further details are below and like much in GIS, it just depends on your specific needs, which one is most suitable.
The USA Annual NLCD Land Cover is USA: Land Cover of the Contiguous USA; 16 classes.
Geographic Extent: Contiguous USA (lower 48 states + DC)
Mosaic Projection: Albers Equal Area Conic, on WGS84 spheroid (AEA_WGS84)
Data Coordinate System: Albers Equal Area Conic, on WGS84 spheroid (AEA_WGS84)
Cell Size: 30-m
Pixel Type: 8-bit unsigned integer
Source Type: Thematic
Time Extent: Annually 1985-2024
Analysis: Analysis-Optimized
Source: National Land Cover Database, Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium
Data Vintage: Version 1.1, June 2025
Publication Date: June 2025
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The Sentinel-2 is GLOBAL and is 10m spatial resolution with 11 classes. Land use/land cover in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
Source Data Coordinate System: Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) WGS84
Service Coordinate System: Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere WGS84 (EPSG:3857)
Extent: Global
Source imagery: Sentinel-2 L2A
Type: Thematic
Attribution: Esri, Impact Observatory
Analysis: Optimized for analysis
Class Definitions: Fewer than NLCD; 11.
—Joseph Kerski
