A major new release of Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) data suite was just launched at World Urban Forum-WUF11 and is now freely available online.  

It comprises 10 products, 200+ data sets, and 50k files – among several global innovations are:

Citation: Boo, G., Darin, E., Leasure, D.R. et al. High-resolution population estimation using household survey data and building footprints. Nat Commun 13, 1330 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29094-x

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has released the World Settlement Footprint 2015 (WSF2015) dataset. The new WSF2015 dataset gives an overview and insight into urban structures in the year 2015 and has a resolution of 10 metres. The 'WSF2015' is now publicly and freely available here.

Citation: MacManus, K., Balk, D., Engin, H., McGranahan, G., and Inman, R.: Estimating Population and Urban Areas at Risk of Coastal Hazards, 1990–2015: How data choices matter, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-165, in review, 2021

Citation: Yin, Xu, Peng Li, Zhiming Feng, Yanzhao Yang, Zhen You, and Chiwei Xiao. 2021. "Which Gridded Population Data Product Is Better? Evidences from Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA)" ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information 10, no. 10: 681. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi10100681

Citation: Tuholske, Cascade, Andrea E. Gaughan, Alessandro Sorichetta, Alex de Sherbinin, Agathe Bucherie, Carolynne Hultquist, Forrest Stevens, Andrew Kruczkiewicz, Charles Huyck, and Greg Yetman. 2021. "Implications for Tracking SDG Indicator Metrics with Gridded Population Data" Sustainability 13, no. 13: 7329. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137329