Buildings (Panden) — Kadaster / Netherlands

What This Dataset Is

All 11.4 million buildings (panden) in the Netherlands from the BAG (Basisregistratie Adressen en Gebouwen), the authoritative Dutch national building and address registry. Municipalities maintain the data; Kadaster manages the national facility (LV-BAG) and publishes it via PDOK.

This is the BAG GeoPackage "light" extract — current buildings only (no version history), with the most-used attributes. It is updated monthly (1st of each month).

Compared to the INSPIRE Buildings dataset (also in this catalog), the BAG light has:

• More attributes: usage function (gebruiksdoel), floor area, dwelling unit count
• Native Dutch field names (bouwjaar, status) instead of INSPIRE names (anyPoint)
• Current records only (11.4M rows vs 24.2M with history in INSPIRE)
• Native CRS EPSG:28992 (RD New) instead of ETRS89

No building heights or floor counts. BAG records footprints and construction years, not heights. For 3D building data with heights, volumes, and roof types, see the 3D BAG collection in this catalog — produced by TU Delft's 3D Geoinformation Research Group by combining this BAG data with AHN point cloud heights.

Source: https://www.pdok.nl/introductie/-/article/basisregistratie-adressen-en-gebouwen-ba-1 Provider: Kadaster (Netherlands Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency) License: CC0 (public domain) Update frequency: Monthly

How to Access

This is a GeoParquet 1.1.0 file with bbox covering columns and Hilbert spatial sorting. The native CRS is EPSG:28992 (RD New / Amersfoort) — coordinates are in meters.

The file is 933 MB. DuckDB streams it efficiently using HTTP range requests — you don't need to download the full file. The bbox covering columns and Hilbert sorting enable DuckDB to skip irrelevant row groups for spatial filters.

Schema — Field Meanings

Important Columns

The columns you'll most often use:

• identificatie — BAG building ID (the key identifier, links to other registries)
• bouwjaar — construction year (integer, much simpler than INSPIRE's ISO date string)
• status — lifecycle status (filter for "Pand in gebruik" for active buildings)
• gebruiksdoel — what the building is used for (residential, office, retail, etc.)
• aantal_verblijfsobjecten — how many units/apartments the building contains
• geom — building footprint polygon

Pandstatus Values

The status field has these possible values, from the BAG Catalogus 2018:

Note: demolished buildings ("Pand gesloopt") and cancelled buildings ("Niet gerealiseerd pand") do NOT appear in this dataset — the BAG light extract only contains current objects.

Gebruiksdoel Values

The gebruiksdoel field describes the building's usage function. Most common values:

Comma-separated values indicate mixed-use buildings (e.g., ground-floor shop with apartments above). There are ~48% residential, ~42% no dwelling units, and ~10% other uses.

Construction Year Distribution

The 1950–1999 period dominates — post-war reconstruction and suburban expansion. Only 1 record has bouwjaar = 9999 (unknown), compared to ~1 million in the INSPIRE version.

Geometry Notes

• CRS is EPSG:28992 (RD New / Amersfoort) — coordinates are in meters, NOT degrees. This is the Dutch national coordinate system. X ranges from ~13,600 to ~278,000; Y ranges from ~306,900 to ~617,100.
• To convert to WGS84 (lon/lat) for web mapping or combining with other datasets:

• All geometries are simple Polygons (no MultiPolygon)
• Bounding box in WGS84: [3.37, 50.73, 7.24, 53.55] (all of Netherlands)
• The file has bbox covering columns and Hilbert spatial sorting for efficient queries

Useful Query Patterns

Count buildings by status

Construction year distribution by decade

Find buildings in a specific area (bbox filter in RD New coords)

This uses the bbox covering columns — DuckDB skips row groups outside the range.

Find buildings by WGS84 coordinates (convert on the fly)

Residential buildings built before 1945

Largest apartment buildings (by number of dwelling units)

Buildings per municipality

The first 4 digits of identificatie encode the municipality code (gemeentecode).

Usage function breakdown

Compute building footprint area (in m², since CRS is already in meters)

Note: Since the CRS is already in meters (RD New), ST_Area(geom) gives area in m² directly — no need for ST_Area_Spheroid.

Load into GeoPandas

BAG Context

The BAG is one of 10 Dutch national key registrations ("stelsel van basisregistraties"). A pand (building) in the BAG is defined as "the smallest functionally and structurally independent unit that is directly and permanently connected to the earth, accessible, and lockable."

Key relationships to other Dutch registrations:

• BRK (Kadaster): parcels and ownership — 94% of BAG addresses link to BRK
• BGT (Grootschalige Topografie): detailed map — BAG pand IDs link to BGT buildings
• BRP (Personen): population registry — uses BAG addresses
• WOZ (Waardering Onroerende Zaken): property tax valuations — uses BAG data

The identificatie field is the universal key that connects buildings across these registrations. The first 4 digits are the gemeentecode (e.g., 0363 = Amsterdam, 0518 = Den Haag, 0599 = Rotterdam).

BAG Light vs Full BAG Extract

Caveats

• EPSG:28992 coordinates: Unlike many datasets, coordinates are in meters (RD New), not degrees. You must transform to WGS84 for web maps or combining with global data.
• NULL gebruiksdoel: ~4.8 million buildings (42%) have no usage function because they contain zero verblijfsobjecten (dwelling units). These are mostly sheds, garages, outbuildings, and other structures without an address.
• Mixed-use encoding: Usage functions are comma-separated strings, not arrays. Use LIKE '%woonfunctie%' to find all buildings with a residential component.
• Bouwjaar data quality: Some implausible construction years exist (e.g., year 1000). The year 1900 is over-represented because many years were originally derived from WOZ (property tax) data which often didn't record precise construction dates.
• Municipality code extraction: Use LEFT(identificatie, 4) to get the gemeente code (e.g., '0363' = Amsterdam). This is a string operation since identificatie is a string.
• Floor area is per dwelling unit, not per building: oppervlakte_min/max describe the range of individual unit sizes, not total building area. For footprint area, compute ST_Area(geom) which gives m² directly in this CRS.

Also Available As

• GeoPackage: bag-light.gpkg (7.2 GB) — the official PDOK download, contains all 5 BAG object types (pand, verblijfsobject, nummeraanduiding, openbareruimte, woonplaats). The GeoParquet only contains the pand (building) table.
• PMTiles: bag-light.pmtiles — for web map visualization with MapLibre GL JS. Features are dropped at lower zoom levels for performance.
• WFS: Live access via https://geodata.nationaalgeoregister.nl/bag/wfs/v1_1 (max 1000 features per request)
• OGC API Features: https://api.pdok.nl/lv/bag/ogc/v1
• BAG Viewer: Interactive map at https://bagviewer.kadaster.nl/
• Linked Data: https://bag.basisregistraties.overheid.nl/ (SPARQL endpoint)

---

Hand-maintained agent guide (ported from this collection's llms.txt in August 2026). Update it alongside collection.json.