Orthophoto INSPIRE

This dataset contains the most recent national orthophoto mosaics covering the entire territory of Belgium. Orthophotos are aerial photographs that have been geometrically corrected (orthorectified) to eliminate distortions caused by terrain relief, lens distortion, and camera tilt. Unlike raw aerial imagery, orthophotos have a uniform scale and accurate geometry, making them suitable for cartography, measurements, and visual analysis. This specific dataset always contains the most recent operational orthophoto mosaics, derived from aerial surveys carried out by the Belgian administrative Regions. When the most recent acquisition campaign does not provide full coverage, the dataset is composed of the last one or two campaigns. In the current version of the dataset, the most recent national orthophoto coverage consists of a combination of the 2023 and 2024 campaigns, as the 2024 flight campaign does not provide full coverage of the territory. The national orthophoto coverage is renewed annually. The orthophoto datasets of the Regions are integrated by the National Geographic Institute (NGI) into a single national coverage. Where possible, radiometric corrections are applied to ensure smooth transitions between the data of the Regions. The resulting orthophoto mosaics are georeferenced in the Lambert 2008 coordinate system and tiled according to the MapIndex1 grid. All orthophotos are in colour (RGB). The ground resolution (GSD) is 25 cm in Wallonia and 12.5 cm in Flanders and the Brussels-Capital Region. The spatial coverage of this dataset is the entire Belgian territory. The data can be visualized via the corresponding web services (WMS/WMTS). The dataset is INSPIRE-compliant and can be downloaded as compressed JPEG2000 files (JP2) per MapIndex1 tile, with the corresponding world file (.j2w) and metadata describing the extent of the tiles.