A draft Standard International Classification (SIC) of land use has been proposed and adopted by the Conference of European Statisticians. The classification scheme has been critically assessed for its suitability for application to different forms of land use survey in the United Kingdom. and also for its compatibility with land cover categories derived from data acquired by remote sensing techniques. At the most general level there is a high degree of agreement with the categories proposed in the USGS classification for use with remote sensor data. In the context of British requirements, the most suitable portion of the SIC appears to be in the classification of' forest and other wooded land'. An alternative classification of 'agricultural land' is offered which is better suited to the needs of the UK agricultural census. The SIC treatment of 'natural terrain' is criticised for being out of step with current ecological practice. especially in the treatment of 'wetlands'. It is suggested that the SIC should be open to modification in the light of its application in the next few years, especially with the likelihood of more widespread adoption for land cover mapping of high resolution satellite data. 1. Background Arising originally out of a meeting on land use statistics held in Geneva in March 1980 under the auspices of the Economic Commission for Europe Con ference of European Statisticians, an amended version of the draft Standard International classification (SIC) of land use was approved at the 31st plenary session of the Conference of European Statisticians in June, 1983, [2] and Table 1. In the United Kingdom, at about the same time, the Land Applications Working Group (LAWG) of the National Remote Sensing Centre was deliberat ing on the matter of land use classification, with particular reference to identify ing a classification suitable for use with remotely sensed images, from aircraft or satellite, as data sources. Robert Wright is a graduate of Glasgow University (B.Sc. Honours in Geography), the International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC) in the Netherlands (B.Sc. in Photogram metric Engineering) and the University of Michigan (M.Sc. in Remote Sensing). He is currently a lecturer in the Geography department at Aberdeen University, where he is responsible for teaching and research activity in the field of environmental remote sensing. He is a member of the Land Applications Working Group of the U.K. National Remote Sensing Centre, Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, England.