Most RED square km on Earth (by major region)

If aliens were monitoring our planet over many years, and they really liked the color red, here is a runup of places they might choose to visit.
Derived over continental-scale regions of North America, South America, Europe, West Asia, East Asia, and Australia for top of atmosphere (TOA), so as observed from space, by Landsat 8 over five years of imagery. Future work aims to examine how much the ‘reddest square km’ moves around for different time intervals. Analysis excludes very high northern latitudes and Antarctica as areas of long duration or perpetual snow/ice cover returned inconsistent results. Resolution = 1 km². Median filtered imagery to remove clouds, cloud shadows, and anomalous reflectances.
Keywords: Geography Viz, World Geography, Reddest Square Kilometer, By Continent, Landsat 8 Imagery, Red index, Top of Atmosphere, Median Filter, Europe, Spain, Central Plateau, East Asia, China, Tengger Desert, South America, Bolivia, Laguna Colorada, North America, Utah, Colorado Plateau, West Asia, Saudi Arabia, An Nafud Desert, Australia, Northern Territory, Simpson Desert, Africa, Chad, Sahara Desert
Resources:
-Landsat 8, Google Earth Engine, ArcGIS Pro, PPT, OBS Studio, OpenShot
-Color info from convertingcolors.com, incl. Behr paint ‘color names’ (over 4600 colors)
-Maps and near community identification from various ESRI basemaps
-Populations are most recently available from Wikipedia
-Ground-level images mostly from google user content, sources by region below
Redness is calculated as the amount of red reflected light relative to green and blue reflected light: Red index = Red / ((Green + Blue) / 2)
Details by region:
Europe
Spain, Central Plateau
38.782°N, 3.086°W, 813 m
Near Alcubillas (6.7 km)
Near Villanueva de los Infantes (10.1 km)
Color Hex #38241F
Rindex = 1.69
‘Bitter Chocolate’
Google Street View along road CM-3217, accessed 5/7/2023
lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/A..., accessed 5/7/2023
Asia East
China, Tengger Desert
39.880°N, 105.754°E, 1030 m
Near Jartai (16 km)
Near Wuhai (121 km)
Color Hex #4A2B24
Rindex = 1.81
‘Chicory Root’
lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/A..., accessed 3/27/2023
South America
Bolivia, Laguna Colorada
22.191°S, 67.791°W, 4289 m
Near San Pedro de Atacama (96 km)
Near Calama (130 km)
Color Hex #452E1A
Rindex = 1.96
‘Cordovan Leather’
lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/A..., accessed 5/4/2023
North America
USA, Utah, Colorado Plateau
37.060°N, 113.399°W, 1221 m
Near St. George (20 km)
Near Hurricane (20 km)
Color Hex #542E21
Rindex = 2.14
‘Brown Eyes’
lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/A..., accessed 3/27/2023
Asia West
Saudi Arabia, An Nafud Desert
42.073°N, 28.826°E, 720 m
Near Baqa’a (31 km)
Near Ha’il (168 km)
Color Hex #633626
Rindex = 2.21
‘Root Beer’
lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/A..., accessed 3/27/2023
Australia
Northern Territory, Simpson Desert
25.380°S, 137.195°E, 84 m
Near Simpson (102 km)
Near Alice Springs (423 km)
Color Hex #45211C
Rindex = 2.31
‘Cordovan Leather’
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi..., accessed 3/27/2023
Africa
Chad, Sahara Desert
19.242°N, 22.768°E, 801 m
Near Faya-Largeau (433 km)
Al Jawf (598 km)
Color Hex #612E21
Rindex = 2.42
‘Burnished Mahogany’
Kröpelin, S., 2007. Reconnaissance of the Erdi Ma (northeast Chad). Atlas of cultural and environmental change in arid Africa, eds. O. Bubenzer, A. Bolten and F. Darius, 58Á59. Köln: Heinrich-Barth-Institut.
0:00 Intro
0:10 Central Plateau, Spain, Europe
1:02 Tengger Desert, China, East Asia
1:35 Laguna Colorada, Bolivia, South America
2:16 Colorado Plateau, Utah, North America
2:52 An Nafud Desert, Saudi Arabia, West Asia
3:16 Simpson Desert, Northern Territory, Australia
3:45 Sahara Desert, Africa, Chad
4:05 Map and Conclusion

[@51Boiler73]

love these videos, keep it up

[@cool_gabe]

Check out parts of the Mexican state of Zacatecas its Red red

[@5enecan]

I thought there’d be some mederranian towns with those red tile roofs making lists. venice looks red from satellite. but i guess they also have trees and water…. interesting video!