A harmonized series of annual nighttime lights, made temporally consistent across the DMSP-OLS (from 1992) and VIIRS satellite sensors, which are not directly comparable in their raw form. Provided as annual raster composites for long-run analysis of economic activity and development. The harmonization is validated in Illuminating the Global South (Chiovelli, Michalopoulos, Papaioannou & Regan, The Economic Journal, 2025).

Though this Africa vintage has been superseded, we continue to keep it available for download in case researchers had used it and need a public record. We note that the pixel values should largely be similar, but will not be the same when comparing the final dataset with the old Africa version.