Land use land cover (LULC) data are grids or polygons representing type and extent of terrain for a portion of the earth’s surface. Some confusion occurs concerning what exactly the difference is between the terms “land cover” and “land use.” Land cover technically consists of anything that covers the land, both natural and human‑made, with perhaps the exception of open water and bare rock (although, these too, are sometimes included in the definition). Land use is supposed to be solely the activities that humans use the land for, like hunting, fishing, and farming, but arguably also consists of categories such as urban, industrial, and residential that aren’t exactly activities but are definitely human‑centric uses of the land. Because of the slightly unclear nature of the terms, many simply concatenate them into one overarching term that groups the two kinds of information together. (See Figure 6.66 for color suggestions.)