A crop sequence dataset of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2019–2024

This paper presents a comprehensive dataset of crop sequences for agricultural fields in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, covering the period from 2019 to 2024. The dataset encompasses approximately 1,444,096 hectares of agricultural land and 740,731 field parcels, provided in vector format (GeoParquet, WGS84). While annual crop type data is commonly available through agricultural subsidy records, tracking crop sequences over time is challenging due to changing field boundaries between years. This dataset was created using a novel spatial joining approach that tracks crop sequences at the field level by determining the largest area overlap between years, achieving a 97 % matching rate compared to the 24 % reported in previous field-identifier-based approaches. The underlying crop type data was sourced from the OpenGeodata portal of North Rhine-Westphalia. Besides the specific dataset we also provide an open-source Python package, available on GitHub. This dataset enables detailed analyses of crop sequences, assessment of agricultural practices, and evaluation of environmental impacts while maintaining the spatial integrity of management units, making it particularly suitable for agricultural modeling, ex-post policy assessment, and farm management studies. With access to IACS data becoming increasingly available in EU member states, this methodology can be applied beyond the case study region.