3D Map Reveals All 2.75 Billion Earth Buildings

A New View of the World

From a digital vantage point in orbit, scientists have created a groundbreaking 3D map of every building on Earth—2.75 billion structures, all in high resolution. This achievement comes from researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), who have developed the GlobalBuildingAtlas, the first comprehensive 3D map of the world’s buildings. The atlas uses satellite imagery dating back to 2019 to chart where people live and how their structures rise and spread across the continents.

“With 3D models, we see not only the footprint but also the volume of each building, enabling far more precise insights into living conditions,” said Prof. Xiaoxiang Zhu, who leads the Chair of Data Science in Earth Observation at TUM and headed the project.

A Planet of Buildings

The scale of this project is truly staggering. Previous global building maps captured around 1.7 billion structures, but this new dataset increases that number to 2.75 billion. The resolution is thirty times finer than earlier efforts, offering an unprecedented level of detail.

Each building is represented as a 3-by-3-meter model, which is detailed enough to estimate its height, volume, and spatial relationship to its neighbors. The research, published in Earth System Science Data on December 1, is the result of years of work combining data from multiple satellites, processed through algorithms trained to distinguish rooftops from roads, trees, and terrain.

Ninety-seven percent of the buildings are represented as Level of Detail 1 (LoD1) models—simplified three-dimensional forms that capture each structure’s geometry and elevation. The project is open to the public, allowing anyone to explore it online, zooming from a continent-wide perspective down to a single neighborhood or even remote villages. Users can enter a specific address to see a building’s location and elevation on the interactive map.

A Different Perspective

This map offers a new way to look at human activity, according to the researchers. “3D building information provides a much more accurate picture of urbanization and poverty than traditional 2D maps,” Zhu said. “We introduce a new global indicator: building volume per capita, the total building mass relative to population—a measure of housing and infrastructure that reveals social and economic disparities.”

This metric could change how researchers track inequality. Wealthier areas tend to have larger volumes of buildings per person, with spacious homes, wider streets, and taller structures. In contrast, densely populated, low-income regions often show the opposite. This ratio, mapped across countries, provides a visual measure of economic development and living standards.

Governments and humanitarian organizations can use the data to identify where housing shortages are most acute, where public services are strained, or where informal settlements expand fastest. “The 3D building data from the GlobalBuildingAtlas provides a precise basis for planning and monitoring urban development,” Zhu said. “It enables cities to take targeted measures to create inclusive and equitable living conditions.”

Closing the Data Gap

For decades, global building datasets have been biased toward wealthy nations. Satellite images from Europe, North America, and East Asia were abundant, while data from Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia remained sparse or unreliable. The TUM team made inclusion a priority, using their algorithms to fill gaps across rural and previously under-mapped regions, correcting biases that have long plagued Earth-observation data.

The result is a truly global picture—from the towers of Manhattan to the farmhouses of Kenya. This coverage could transform development planning in the Global South, enabling urban expansion to be monitored with unprecedented granularity. It allows for early interventions before infrastructure strains or informal settlements become entrenched.

Beyond urban studies, the dataset has immediate implications for the planet’s changing climate. Buildings account for nearly 40% of global CO₂ emissions. Knowing their height, density, and distribution can improve models of energy demand and greenhouse-gas output.

Data Driven Decisions

The GlobalBuildingAtlas arrives at a time when humanity’s footprint is expanding rapidly. By 2050, nearly seven in ten people will live in cities. For scientists and policymakers racing to adapt to that growth, the atlas reflects what has been built and points toward what must come next.

It also empowers open science. Anyone can download the data and code from GitHub, explore their own neighborhood, or use the information to study how cities evolve.

For Zhu, the work is just beginning. The next steps involve integrating temporal data to show how the built environment changes over time—how cities rise, sprawl, or decay.