VECEA vegetation map

View the map on on your desktop or mobile

The map is available in various formats, including maps for on your mobile and as a Google Earth layer or GIS data layers. Please go to overview page for an overview and links. For the Google Earth layer you can also click the little globe icon in this toolbar.

Get the data

The map is also available as raster and vector layers for use in your favorite GIS (geographic information system). If you are interested, please fill out the data request form

The map in Google Earth

You can also explore the map from within Google Earth. First install Google Earth, if you haven't done so already. Next click the link below. This will open Google Earth with the vegetation map.

Click here to open the map in Google Earth

The map consists of two layers, the vegetation map itself and a layer with vegetation labels (letter codes). Click on any of these codes to get the full name of the vegetation type at that location. The pop-up will show with the vegetation name and a link that will open a fact sheet with a concise description of that vegetation type and a list of species naturally occurring in the selected potential natural vegetation type.

The potential natural vegetation map of eastern Africa

The potential natural vegetation (PNV) map of eastern Africa shows the distribution of potential natural vegetation in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia. It distinguishes 48 vegetation types, divided in four main vegetation groups: 16 forest types, 15 woodland and wooded grassland types, 5 bushland and thicket types and 12 other types. Furthermore, a number of compound vegetation types are mapped, which include vegetation mosaics, catena's and transitional zones.

The map is available in various formats and is accompanied by an extensive documentation of the floristic, physiognomic and other characteristics of the different vegetation types and useful woody species in the 8 countries. It is furthermore complemented by a species selection tool, which can be used to 'find the right tree for the right place' and potential distribution maps of the useful woody species that occur in eastern Africa.

The map was developed by the Vegetation and Climate Change in Eastern Africa (VECEA) project. The first version came out in 2011, and the current version 2.0 was published in 2015. The map will be further improved or extended whenever new information becomes available. For the latest news and updates, check out the News page.

Data sources

This online map was created using the various data layers, including the VECEA potential natural vegetation map, OpenStreemap for the roads and places, the AEOn river database for the rivers, and the Global Administrative Areas (GADM) for the national boundaries. The 'vegetation in ppa' depicts the vegetation within the protected areas only, which were extracted from the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA).

The background layers are from OpenstreetMap (OSM) (under CC BY SA), Satellite tiles from Esri, i-cubed, USDA, USGS, AEX, GeoEye, Getmapping, Aerogrid, IGN, IGP, UPR-EGP, and the GIS User Community, and the Stamen map tiles from Stamen Design under CC BY 3.0.

Acknowledgements

The vegetation data layer and the map presented here were created using a number of open source software tools, including GRASS GIS, QGIS, R, Tilemill, Leaflet with the fullscreen, locatecontrol and geocoder plugins, Mapbox.js, and sidebar-v2.

The online map

While moving with your mouse across the map, you see a popup with the name of the vegetation type at the position of your mouse point.

To get more information about the vegetation at any location, double click the map, and a pop-up will show with the vegetation name and a link that will open (in a separate tab/window) a fact sheet with a concise description of that vegetation type and a list of species naturally occurring in the selected potential natural vegetation type.

This map you are viewing now has a few options, like changing the background layer, the opacity of the vegetation map, finding your location or looking for towns and addresses.