Farm cover dominates Crawford County in the supplied 2025 data, but the county is not a single uninterrupted agricultural sheet. Broad yellow field blocks are broken by wooded drainage belts, wet areas along the eastern edge, and a strong developed center around Robinson. This Crawford County Illinois Land Cover Map page compares current cover, forest and farmland, impervious surfaces, and mapped class differences between 1985 and 2025.
Four WebP previews are shown in the article, while the original 2480 × 1754-pixel JPG maps are packaged together in one ZIP. The set works best when the countywide cover map establishes the overall pattern and a second view is added for a specific question, such as where hard surfaces cluster, where wooded land interrupts farm blocks, or where the two endpoint years received different classes.
Table of Contents
A compact Robinson core stands out inside a mostly rural county
Developed land accounts for 8.18% of Crawford County, yet the mean impervious share is only 1.98%. Just 0.81% of the county is mapped at 50% impervious or greater. Those numbers are not contradictory. A developed land-cover class can include lawns, trees, exposed soil, and other permeable ground around buildings and roads, while the impervious layer focuses more narrowly on surfaces such as roofs and pavement.
The darkest impervious tones are concentrated in the large central cluster associated with Robinson. Crawford County government offices and the local University of Illinois Extension office are based in Robinson, which provides useful local context for that central concentration. The map itself does not draw municipal boundaries or label streets, so the outer edge of the dark cluster should not be treated as an official city limit.
The 2025 overview is agricultural first, with forest becoming denser toward the south and southeast
Agriculture covers 68.84% of the county, making it the dominant class by a wide margin. Forest follows at 18.04%, developed land at 8.18%, wetlands at 4.10%, and open water at 0.72%. Grassland is only 0.05% and shrubland 0.01% in the summary. The main story is therefore the relationship among farm country, wooded land, developed centers, and wet ground rather than the two very small open-vegetation classes.
Large agricultural blocks are especially continuous across the north, west, and much of the interior. Forest does not form one isolated preserve. Instead, green patches and branching belts run through the farm pattern, becoming more frequent in the southern half and particularly noticeable in the southeast. The arrangement creates many field-to-forest edges even though agriculture remains the largest class countywide.
Wetland colors trace the irregular eastern boundary and also enter the interior along several narrow corridors. Blue water is much less extensive than teal wetland cover. This is expected because open-water classes represent exposed water surfaces, while wetland classes may include vegetated or seasonally saturated ground. A person using the map for river or drainage context should keep those categories separate.
Land cover is a classification of what is on the surface. It is not zoning, legal land use, property ownership, a farm parcel map, or permission to build. A yellow agricultural cell does not name the crop or define a farm boundary, and a red developed cell does not mean every square foot is paved. Those distinctions are important when the image is used outside a classroom or county profile.
Wabash River geography helps explain why the eastern edge looks different
An official Crawford County multi-hazard mitigation plan states that the Wabash River forms the county’s eastern border. The same plan places Crawford County across the Embarras and Middle Wabash-Busseron watersheds. That background fits the visibly irregular eastern edge of the land-cover map, where water, wetlands, forest, and agricultural land meet in a much more broken pattern than many interior farm blocks.
The map can therefore provide useful visual context for the Wabash border, but the teal cells are not a legal wetland delineation. Annual NLCD uses 30-meter raster cells, meaning each square receives a predominant class. Actual channel banks, floodplains, jurisdictional wetlands, drainage easements, and levee limits may fall inside or across those cells. Current hydrologic and regulatory data are required for site decisions.
Removing the urban colors reveals how forest divides the farm pattern
With developed and miscellaneous surfaces pushed into the background, the county’s vegetation structure becomes easier to follow. Cropland fills most of the broad open blocks. Forest appears as larger patches in the south and southeast and as narrower bands through the north and interior. Wetlands often occupy adjacent low areas, creating repeated contacts among farm fields, wooded strips, and wet ground.
The 7.45% endpoint difference contains several kinds of change
The 1985-to-2025 comparison reports 7.45% total class difference. The listed components include 0.96% classified as developed, 0.48% forest loss, 1.32% agricultural loss, and 4.53% other difference. Because the miscellaneous category is the largest listed component, the total should not be described as a 7.45% urban expansion rate or a 7.45% loss of natural land.
Red developed-conversion cells are visible around the central developed area and in smaller clusters elsewhere. Yellow agricultural-loss cells and orange forest-loss cells are more scattered. Purple other-difference patches occur widely across the county. Wetland difference appears in the legend, but the summary does not provide a separate percentage for that category, so a residual calculation should not be presented as an official wetland-change rate.
The word “loss” refers to a class at the 1985 endpoint receiving a different class in 2025. It does not identify the year or cause of the transition. Construction, vegetation succession, timber activity, agricultural practice, seasonal water, sensor conditions, and classification variation can all require further investigation. Intermediate imagery and local records are needed before assigning a specific explanation to an individual patch.
Use the maps as a sequence instead of asking one image to answer every question
For a general county profile, begin with the 2025 land-cover map. It establishes the 68.84% agricultural background, the forest concentration toward the south and southeast, the central developed core, and the wet eastern edge. A second map can then sharpen the point: use the vegetation view for farm-to-forest contacts, the impervious view for hard surfaces, or the endpoint comparison for mapped class differences.
Scale, cell size, and the JPG dimensions set practical limits
Annual NLCD works with 30-meter square cells. A cell can contain a field edge, trees, a ditch, a building, grass, and pavement at the same time, yet it still receives one predominant class. Enlarging the map cannot recreate details that were not present in the source classification. Parcel questions, farm boundaries, building footprints, and wetland permitting therefore require more detailed data.
Each downloadable JPG measures 2480 × 1754 pixels. The asset manifest does not mark the images as meeting an A3 high-resolution reference, so a test print is sensible before using them for a large display. Keeping the original aspect ratio avoids distortion, and the files are well suited to on-screen reference, reports, lessons, slides, and smaller printed material where the labels remain legible.
The present-cover maps represent the supplied 2025 observation year. Later construction, crop changes, timber work, vegetation recovery, flooding, or other surface changes may not appear. When a decision depends on current conditions, use these maps as a regional reference and compare them with recent aerial imagery, county GIS, agency records, or field observations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do forest and wetlands look prominent when agriculture covers 68.84%?
Agriculture is the largest class, but forest still covers 18.04% and wetlands 4.10%. Wooded and wet areas often form long narrow belts and repeated patches through farm country, so they can appear frequently on the map even though their total area is much smaller than agriculture.
Can the wetland colors along the Wabash River be used as legal wetland boundaries?
No. Official sources confirm that the Wabash River forms Crawford County’s eastern border, but the teal map cells are 30-meter land-cover classifications. Jurisdictional wetlands, floodplains, levees, and permit boundaries require current agency data and, when necessary, field delineation.
Does the 7.45% class difference mean Crawford County became 7.45% more developed?
No. Only 0.96% is listed as classified to developed in the endpoint comparison. Agricultural loss is 1.32%, forest loss 0.48%, and other class difference 4.53%. The total combines several categories and does not identify the exact timing or cause of each change.
Sources and Reference Data
- MRLC Annual NLCD Data – official access point for annual land-cover and comparison products
- USGS Annual NLCD Land Cover Classification – class definitions and guidance for forest, agriculture, developed land, wetlands, and related categories
- U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line Shapefiles – official county-boundary reference
- Illinois IEMA-OHS – Crawford County Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan – county geography, Wabash River border, and watershed context
- Crawford County Government – official county information, departments, and GIS access
- University of Illinois Extension – Clark, Crawford and Edgar Counties – local agriculture and natural-resources programs and Crawford County office information
Map File Information
The ZIP contains four original JPG maps for comparing Crawford County's 2025 land cover, farm and forest pattern, impervious surfaces, and 1985–2025 class differences.
- Included Files: Use only the versions confirmed in the article and supplied images
- File Type: Use the confirmed download contents
- Intended Use: Printing, education, presentations, and map-based projects
Related Maps
- Adams County Illinois Land Cover Map
- Alexander County Illinois Land Cover Map
- Bond County Illinois Land Cover Map
Green Map creates custom-edited map images using open geographic data sources such as geoBoundaries, Natural Earth, OpenStreetMap, and government open data.
These maps are edited visual materials, not raw data files, and are provided for education, documents, presentations, and graphic reference.
