Historical land cover data are the basis of quantifying the environmental effects of land use and land cover change (LUCC), and a lower deviation is expected when they are used to study the carbon cycle and create climate simulations. Generally, a global scenario of past LUCC that can be supported by relevant historical evidence is more likely to describe the actual LUCC pattern of a given region. Starting from this point, we selected qualitative and quantitative evidence of cropland cover changes in Germany over the last millennium to explore the feasibility of using historical information to discuss the deviation of global LUCC scenarios in regions lacking independent reconstructions. A comparison between the cropland data of HYDE 3.2.1, a representative and widely used global historical land use scenario, and German historical evidence was conducted. The total areas of croplands in HYDE showed high consistency with previous studies based on region-specific sources, although HYDE’s interpolation method after 1700 AD may need some improvement. Several deviations arise from cropland allocations in HYDE 3.2.1, especially for the early cropland expansion in areas along major rivers and wetlands. HYDE’s insufficient consideration of the spatial variation in population over time might account for the noticeable discrepancies between the spatial patterns of HYDE croplands and medieval settlements, as well as research on the agricultural landscape from 1000 AD to 1400 AD. The findings of this study suggest that the introduction of human indicators such as settlement data could help to improve the estimation and allocation algorithms of global-scale LUCC reconstructions.

历史土地覆被数据是量化土地利用和土地覆被变化（LUCC）的环境影响的基础，当将其用于研究碳循环和创建气候模拟时，预期会有较小的偏差。通常，可以由相关历史证据支持的过去LUCC的全球情景更可能描述给定区域的实际LUCC模式。从这一点出发，我们选择了上个千年德国在耕地面积变化方面的定性和定量证据，以探讨使用历史信息讨论缺乏独立重建的地区全球LUCC情景偏差的可行性。HYDE 3.2.1（具有代表性和广泛使用的全球历史土地使用情况）的耕地数据之间的比较，并进行了德国历史证明。尽管在公元1700年后HYDE的插值方法可能需要改进，但HYDE的耕地总面积与以前基于特定区域来源的研究显示出高度一致性。HYDE 3.2.1中耕地分配产生了一些偏差，特别是在主要河流和湿地沿线的早期农田扩张方面。HYDE对人口随时间变化的空间考虑不够充分，这可能解释了HYDE农田和中世纪定居点的空间格局之间的明显差异，以及从公元1000年到1400年的农业景观研究。