Land Capability for Agriculture - Prime Land

Published by:
Scottish Government SpatialData.gov.scot
Last updated:
14 May 2026
Topic:
Not added
Licence:
None

Summary

This dataset provides a digital boundary for Prime Agricultural Land (otherwise termed "best and most versatile") in Scotland based on an amalgamation of classes 1, 2 and 3.1 of the Land Capability for Agriculture (LCA) maps. The LCA classification is used to rank land on the basis of its potential productivity and cropping flexibility. This is determined by the extent to which the physical characteristics of the land (soil, climate and relief) impose long term restrictions on its use. The source LCA maps are available from the James Hutton Institute at both 1:250,000 (national coverage) and 1:50,000 (partial coverage) scales.This LCA Prime Land boundary has been produced from a hybrid version of the LCA classification which combines the 1:250,000 and 1:50,000 scale datasets. The hybrid dataset uses the more detailed 1:50,000 scale data where it exists in preference to the 1:250,000 scale data as it is seen as the definitive mapped assessment. The majority of prime land boundary is sourced from the 1:50,000 scale mapping, with that sourced from the 1:250,000 map limited to north-west of Montrose, Machrihanish, a small area adjacent to the Black Isle, west of Campbeltown and south of Jedburgh. This prime land dataset should be used in favour of previous versions which only referenced the 1:250,000 scale mapping.The LCA Prime Land boundary supports planners and agricultural officers in assessing cases made for development and determining priorities in relation to retaining areas of high quality agricultural land, i.e. that with a high capacity to produce food.

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Data links

Link to the data Format File added Data preview
ESRI Shapefile Download ZIP 14 May 2026 Not available
PrimeAgriculturalLand N/A 14 May 2026 Not available
PrimeAgriculturalLand N/A 14 May 2026 Not available
PL:PrimeAgriculturalland N/A 14 May 2026 Not available
PrimeAgriculturalLand N/A 14 May 2026 Not available

Additional information

View additional metadata
Added to data.gov.uk
2026-05-14
Access contraints
This data is made available under the James Hutton Institute Open Data License. When reproducing please include the following credits: Soil Survey of Scotland Staff (1981). Land Capability for Agriculture maps of Scotland at a scale of 1:50,000 and 1:250 000. Macaulay Institute for Soil Research, Aberdeen. 10.5281/zenodo.6322683 and 10.5281/zenodo.6322760.
Harvest GUID
906d451b-f7ec-4e70-b928-25b89d8db8c8
Extent
Latitude: 57.9864° to °
Longitude: -5.9499° to -1.8542°
Spatial reference system
Dataset reference date
2025-05-07 (revision)
1981-01-01 (creation)
Frequency of update
notPlanned
Responsible party
The James Hutton Institute (originator); Scottish Government (publisher)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng
Source Metadata
XML
HTML

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