About the data

protected.land is a small reference site about one statistic. It exists because the figure is widely quoted and rarely shown with its definition, its year and its source next to it.

Source

Every number comes from World Bank Open Data. The indicators used are ER.LND.PTLD.ZS, AG.LND.TOTL.K2. The data is licensed CC BY 4.0, and so is the compiled table published here at /data.json.

Method

The figures count terrestrial and inland-water areas recorded in the World Database on Protected Areas, which UNEP-WCMC compiles from national governments. Marine areas are a separate series and are not included here. Square kilometres are worked out from each country’s protected share and its land area.

For each economy the site shows the most recent year that has a value, and prints that year. Regional and income-group aggregates are removed from country tables.

The figures are checked against the source once a day. Before new numbers replace old ones they must pass sanity checks — enough economies, a plausible world figure, an unbroken world series — so that a malformed response cannot put nonsense on the page. Current dataset: last updated by the World Bank 2026-10-08, retrieved 2026-11-03.

What this site is not

It carries no advertising and sells nothing. It does not value land, recommend investments or offer products. It is not affiliated with the World Bank, FAO, UNEP-WCMC, IUCN or any company.