A collection of datasets from various Dutch institutions to demonstrate a Spatial Data Infrastructure built on Portolan.
The Soil Map of the Netherlands 1:50,000 (Dutch Bodemkaart van Nederland, BRO object
SGM) — the authoritative national soil map produced by Wageningen Environmental Research. Each
of the 48,025 polygons is a mapped soil area. This collection is enriched: the primary soil
unit (soilunit_code, the BRO bodemcode) and its main soil class (hoofdklasse, e.g.
Podzolgronden, Zeekleigronden, Veengronden) and full classification (bodemklasse) have
been joined from the soil-unit tables so you can map and analyse soil type directly.
Features: 48,025 | CRS: EPSG:28992 | License: CC0 1.0 (public domain) Source: PDOK / BRO (provider VRO). Formats: GeoParquet · PMTiles · GeoPackage (PDOK Atom).
One of the most widely used environmental datasets in the Netherlands: agriculture and precision farming, hydrology and water management, nature development, carbon/peat studies, and spatial planning.
This collection comes from the Basisregistratie Ondergrond (BRO) — the Dutch Key Registry of the Subsurface, a statutory base registry in force since 1 January 2018. Government bodies must register subsurface data in the BRO and may only use registered data for public tasks. Data is published openly via PDOK, usually within ~1 day of registration. The Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning (VRO) is the system-responsible provider; the data here is produced by TNO – Geologische Dienst Nederland (subsurface objects) or Wageningen Environmental Research (the soil and geomorphological maps).
Two BRO concepts appear in almost every dataset:
bro_id — the unique registration identifier of each object (e.g. GMW000000012345).quality_regime — IMBRO (full quality assurance) or IMBRO/A (transitional data delivered under a lighter regime; treat with slightly more caution).DuckDB (analytics):
GeoPandas:
Geometry is stored in geom (WKB, EPSG:28992); geom_bbox is a per-feature bounding-box
struct enabling fast spatial pre-filtering.
soilslope is Niet opgenomen (not recorded) for almost all polygons.legenda_url).Area of pedological interest, soil boreholes (BHR-P), soil trenches (SFR).
Column names in this collection are the English BRO field names. Common Dutch equivalents:
bronhouder = delivery_accountable_party (data owner), kwaliteitsregime = quality_regime, bodemklasse = soil class, hoofdklasse = main soil class, genese = genesis (landform origin), reliëf = relief, boring/booronderzoek = borehole, sondering = cone penetration test, grondwater = groundwater, mijnbouw = mining, bodemverontreiniging = soil contamination.
Mapbox GL v8 style files (use with MapLibre GL JS, OpenLayers via ol-mapbox-style, or any Mapbox GL v8 renderer) live alongside the PMTiles:
styles/default.json — BRO Soil Map of the Netherlands 1:50,000 — Soil areas (SGM) — Default (https://data.source.coop/cholmes/portolan-nl/vro/bodemkaart/soilarea/styles/default.json)styles/by-collection.json — BRO Soil Map of the Netherlands 1:50,000 — Soil areas (SGM) — By survey campaign (https://data.source.coop/cholmes/portolan-nl/vro/bodemkaart/soilarea/styles/by-collection.json)styles/by-texture.json — BRO Soil Map of the Netherlands 1:50,000 — Soil areas (SGM) — By texture (sand / clay / peat) (https://data.source.coop/cholmes/portolan-nl/vro/bodemkaart/soilarea/styles/by-texture.json)soilarea.pmtilesvia links in
collection.json.Part of the Portolan NL catalog · CC0 1.0 · provider VRO (Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting en Ruimtelijke Ordening).
geom_bbox | struct<xmin: float, ymin: float, xmax: float, ymax: float> | Per-feature bounding box struct for spatial filtering. |