This dataset depicts the existing land use for Berks County. Each tax parcel has been designated an existing land use type. Any tax parcel greater than 5 acres may contain more than one existing land use designation.

The following are descriptions of the 10 land use designations used:

Residential Low: Tax parcels between 1 to 5 acres.

Residential High: Tax parcels less than 1 acre. Mobile home parks, apartment/condo complexes, and townhouses are also found in this land use designation.

Commercial: Land uses that include services, retail, offices, utilities (Med-Ed, phone companies, sub-stations), fairgrounds, stadiums, fitness centers, motorcycle clubs, airports and parking garages.

Industrial: Land uses that include manufacturing facilities, warehouses, landfills, junk yards, and quarries.

Institutional: Land uses that include municipal buildings, schools (including school recreation fields), colleges, campuses, libraries, hospitals, nursing homes, churches, cemeteries, historical societies, and fire companies.

Agriculture: Land uses that include cropland, pasture, farm homesteads, barns, silos, and mushroom farms.

Recreation: Land uses that include golf courses, baseball fields, playgrounds, fish and game commission lands, rod and gun clubs, gamelands, and RV parks.

Open Space: Land uses that include woodland and rural (land with no structure, excluding farmland).

Transportation: Land uses that include roads and railroads.

Water: Land uses that include rivers, streams, ponds and lakes.