Legend
About CropHist
CropHist visualizes the crop history of ~29 million agricultural fields across the contiguous United States from 2008 to 2024. For each field and each year, the dominant crop is shown based on the USDA Cropland Data Layer.
What you can do
- Browse the map at any zoom level — raster crop colors at low zoom, individual field polygons at high zoom
- Use the year slider to see how cropping patterns changed over 17 years
- Click any field to see its full crop rotation history (2008–2024)
- Click a crop in the legend to highlight fields with that dominant crop
Data sources
nass.usda.gov — Cropland Data Layer
Coverage
- Geography: 48 contiguous US states (CONUS)
- Years: 2008–2024 (17 years)
- Fields: ~29.1 million unique boundaries
- Crops: 127 categories from the CDL classification
Methodology
For each field and year, zonal statistics are computed by intersecting the field polygon with the CDL raster. The crop code covering the largest fraction of the field is recorded as the dominant crop. A minimum coverage threshold of 51% is applied.
Technical stack
- Map rendering: MapLibre GL JS
- Vector tiles: PMTiles hosted on AWS S3 + CloudFront
- Raster tiles: AWS Lambda (rio-tiler) reading Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFFs
- Field history API: AWS Lambda + DynamoDB
Terms of Use
Last updated: February 2026
1. Use of the service
CropHist (crophist.com) is provided for informational and research purposes. You may use the map and data displayed on this site freely for non-commercial purposes with attribution.
2. Data licensing
USDA Cropland Data Layer: Published by the US federal government and is in the public domain. It may be freely used, reproduced, and distributed without restriction.
Field boundary data: Provided by Varda and subject to Varda's data licensing terms. Reproduction or redistribution of field boundary geometries without Varda's permission is not permitted.
3. No warranty
This service is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Crop classifications are derived from satellite imagery and may contain errors. Do not rely on this data for commercial agricultural decisions.
4. Attribution
If you reference or reproduce data from CropHist, please cite:
CropHist (crophist.com) — Field crop history for the contiguous United States, 2008–2024. Field boundaries: Varda. Crop data: USDA NASS Cropland Data Layer.
5. Changes
We reserve the right to modify these terms at any time. Continued use of the service constitutes acceptance of any updated terms.
Privacy Policy
Last updated: February 2026
No personal data collected
CropHist does not collect, store, or process any personal information. There is no account system, no login, and no user tracking.
Cookies
This site does not use cookies or local storage beyond what is strictly necessary for the map to function (browser caching of map tiles for performance).
Analytics
We do not use any third-party analytics services (no Google Analytics, no tracking pixels).
Server logs
Tile and API requests are served via AWS CloudFront and Lambda. AWS standard access logs may record IP addresses and request paths as part of normal infrastructure operation. These logs are retained for troubleshooting and are not used for any other purpose.
Third-party services
The map basemap is provided by Mapbox. When the map loads, your browser makes requests to Mapbox tile servers. Please refer to Mapbox's privacy policy for details on their data practices.
Contact
Questions about privacy: kostia.varik@gmail.com