global-land-mask
Check whether a lat/lon point in on land or on sea
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you need fast land/ocean classification and can tolerate that the package is no longer maintained. The permissive MIT license and low install friction make it low-risk to add. However, verify that 1 km resolution and the specific treatment of lakes and coastlines match your accuracy requirements before committing to it in production.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Low friction installation with no runtime dependencies.
- Package is abandoned as of 2022 with no recent maintenance, so expect no bug fixes or updates.
License · maintenance · safety
permissive license (permissive) — MIT license permits commercial and private use with minimal restrictions, making it safe to integrate into most projects.
last release 2020-10-05 (2139 days) · last repo commit 2022-04-12 · 121 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 76,134 downloads/mo, #14,653 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install global-land-mask
from global_land_mask import globe
lat, lon = 40, -120
is_on_land = globe.is_land(lat, lon)
print(is_on_land)- Whether the precompiled land mask data is included in the wheel or downloaded on first use
- Current accuracy compared to other land/sea datasets or whether 1 km resolution is sufficient for your use case
- Whether numpy is actually required at runtime or only for data generation
What it is and what it does
global-land-mask provides a fast lookup function to classify any latitude/longitude point on Earth as land or ocean. It uses a precomputed binary mask derived from the GLOBE elevation dataset, which covers the entire planet at 1 km resolution and is compressed to about 2.5 MB. The package exports two main functions: globe.is_land() and globe.is_ocean(), both of which accept scalar or array inputs for batch queries.
The primary use case is rapid geolocation classification in data pipelines, geospatial analysis, or mapping applications. The documentation indicates significant performance advantages for bulk queries. The package treats lakes as land and acknowledges that resolution is not perfect, but is adequate for many practical purposes.
Use it for
- Filter geographic datasets to include only land-based or ocean-based points before further processing
- Validate or enrich location data in applications that need to classify user coordinates
- Prepare training data for geospatial analysis by labeling points as land or sea
- Generate visualizations or heatmaps that require fast land/ocean classification across grids
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you need fast land/ocean classification and can tolerate that the package is no longer maintained.
The permissive MIT license and low install friction make it low-risk to add. However, verify that 1 km resolution and the specific treatment of lakes and coastlines match your accuracy requirements before committing to it in production.
Install
global-land-mask on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction installation with no runtime dependencies. Package is abandoned as of 2022 with no recent maintenance, so expect no bug fixes or updates.
License in practice
MIT license permits commercial and private use with minimal restrictions, making it safe to integrate into most projects.
Quickstart
pip install global-land-mask
from global_land_mask import globe
lat, lon = 40, -120
is_on_land = globe.is_land(lat, lon)
print(is_on_land)Verify before relying
- Whether the precompiled land mask data is included in the wheel or downloaded on first use
- Current accuracy compared to other land/sea datasets or whether 1 km resolution is sufficient for your use case
- Whether numpy is actually required at runtime or only for data generation
Package facts
| License | permissive license permissive |
| Python support | Not specified |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | None |
| Maintenance | Abandoned 2,139 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 76,134 / month, #14,653 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | License :: OSI Approved :: MIT LicenseOperating System :: OS IndependentProgramming Language :: Python :: 3 |
Evidence: global_land_mask-1.0.0-py3-none-any.whl
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