ποΈLhasa 2004: 1 m Resolution OrbView Historical Satellite Imagery
Lhasa sits in the valley of the Lhasa River, a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo, at an elevation of more than 3,600 metres. The Barkhor, the Potala Palace and the Jokhang all crowd onto the flattest ground in that valley. In the early 2000s the city had only just begun to spread east and west: farmland, groves and villages along the river still ran together, and the courtyard fabric of the old town was largely intact. Satellite images from that moment are precious because they fall exactly before the big demolition-and-rebuild years β one pass fixed the road skeleton, building density and land use of the time.
At 1 m, the 2004 scene resolves roofs, courtyards, tree crowns and field ridges. Overlay it on today's imagery and you can see where the city grew, how far farmland retreated and whether the river shifted. For planning, historical geography, old-town conservation and place-name research, this is a base map you can measure and reuse. The images below were taken by the American OrbView satellite over Lhasa in 2004 at 1 m resolution.
OrbView is a family of commercial remote-sensing satellites operated by Orbital Imaging, later absorbed into GeoEye. OrbView-2, launched in 1997, was built mainly for ocean-colour observation. On 26 June 2003 OrbView-3 reached a sun-synchronous orbit on a Pegasus XL air-launched rocket, carrying a 1 m panchromatic and 4 m multispectral sensor with a swath of about 8 km β one of the few sub-metre commercial sources open to civilian customers at the time. It operated until 2007, and its archive is now a valuable record of how cities changed.
OrbView imagery is particularly useful for a highland city like Lhasa. Around 2004 the built-up area was still concentrated in the valley: the courtyard pattern around the Barkhor, building density near the Potala Palace, and the farmland and woodland along the Lhasa River were all fairly intact. At 1 m, roofs, courtyards, tree crowns and field boundaries are distinguishable. Stack those scenes on today's imagery and the city's spread along the valley, the extension of the road grid and the retreat of farmland become plain. For urban planning, historical geography, old-town protection and place-name research, it is a base map that can be measured directly.
π Ground Detail: OrbView vs. Today (shorter bar = finer detail)
One pixel, three sensorsποΈLhasa in 2004: Historical OrbView Imagery
Total 15 imagesClick the βΆ button in the middle of any image to view it full screen. In full screen, press β β for the previous image and β β for the next; press Esc to exit.
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π―What Else Can You Spot?
These ground targets read clearly in OrbView imagery. Pick a topic to see more.