Africa

This page is a catalogue of digital soil resources available outside our organisation, for Africa.

For other resources, please return to the Soil Geographic Databases starting page.

(Sub)Continent | Regional | Individual countries

(Sub)Continent

  • Soil Atlas of Africa and its associated Soil Map
    A polygon map at design scale 1:3M as developed in the FAO/JRC Soil Atlas of Africa, showing the dominant WRB Reference Soil Group and associated qualifiers. Download by request; the PDF of the Atlas is also available for download. “The map has been derived from the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). The original data were updated and modified according to the World Reference Base for Soil Resources classification system. The corrections concerned boundary issues, areas with no information, soil patterns, river and drainage networks, and dynamic features such as sand dunes, water bodies and coastlines”
  • European digital archive on soil maps (EuDASM) for Africa
    Scanned soil maps available for countries in Africa.
  • Soil Data of Africa
    “This soil information system provides access continent-wide soil data and information and other data relevant for sustainable intensification of agriculture in Africa. These data were systematically collected and catalogued by the Soils4Africa project and provide a baseline for monitoring the soil status of Africa’s agricultural land.” The Map Viewer shows the locations of the Soils4Africa field survey, coverages from Africa Soil Grids (= iSDA? see next entry), WoSIS profiles for Africa. The Download button opens a page to download the Soils4Africa observations (soil surface, terrain, land cover, land management, grazing).
  • iSDA Open access soil data for Africa
    iSDA is the successor to AfSIS. As of 21-08-2025 this dataset has 49225 entries and has not been updated since at least mid-2023. It has analytical data for the usual soil properties as well as micronutrients and Al. The profile data are also available at this github site. Also reachable by DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/A69R5.
  • Wet chemistry data for a subset of AfSIS: Phase I archived soil samples “This dataset contains a subset of the samples collected during the AfSIS Phase I project and was a collaborative effort between World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and Rothamsted Research. The soil samples were retrieved from ICRAF Soil Archive and subject to wet chemical analysis at Rothamsted Research in the UK.” Also reachable via its DOI: 10.34725/DVN/66BFOB.
  • SubSaharan Africa nutrient maps at 250 m resolution
    Spatial predictions of content of soil macro and micro-nutrients across Sub-Saharan Africa at 250 m spatial resolution for the 0-30 cm depth interval Model training based on soil samples from 59,000 locations from the AfSIS, EthioSIS, One Acre Fund, VitalSigns and other legacy soil databases and an extensive stack of remote sensing covariates, as well as landform, lithologic and land cover maps.
  • iSDAsoil
    Gridded soil property predictive maps at 30 m horizontal resolution for sub-Saharan Africa. Soil chemical, physical and nutrients; agronomy information including a partial implementation of the Fertility Capability Classification (FCC) system of soil-related limitations. The claim is that these maps “make soil properties and advisory services possible at the level of the single small farm.” From iSDA-Africa, an initiative to bring “smart farming” to this region. This is a followup to the AfSIS project.
    Available for download via Zenodo Also available as a “data cube” including agronomy data, see Soil and Agronomy Data Cube for Africa at 30-m spatial resolution.

Regional

  • SOTERSAF
    SOil and TERrain Database for eight southern African countries, at a scale of 1:2M.
  • SOTERCAF
    SOil and TERrain Database for the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi, at scales of 1:2M (DRC), and 1:1M (Rwanda and Burundi).

Individual countries

Ethiopia

Ghana

Kenya

Lesotho

Morocco

Nigeria

Rwanda

Senegal & Gambia

(Republic of) South Africa

Tanzania

Tunisia

Uganda