Land type is the main classification theme in AR250 based on vegetation, natural drainage and cultivation.

Main classes are:

10 Built-up area and transportation networks; 20 Cultivated land; 30 Forest; 60 Peat bog; 50 Open land; 70 Glacier and permanent snow; 81 Fresh water; 82 Salt water;

The national land resource database (AR) classifies the land cover of mainland Norway according to the suitability for agriculture and natural plant production. National land resource datasets are available at scale 1:5.000 (AR5), 1:50.000 (AR50) and 1:250.000 (AR250).

AR250 is the Norwegian low resolution land resource dataset, covering the entire mainland Norway. It is built and maintained for cartographic presentations at regional level (1:100.000 to 1:300.000). The dataset is not intended for spatial analysis.

Features in AR250 are continuous areas represented as polygons with attributes assigned according to the classification criteria of AR250. The primary level of classification is land type (arealtype), based on a combination of land cover and land use. Second level attributes are forest site quality class (skogbonitet) and forest cover type (treslag). AR250 also includes information about arable land on current bare land, marsh or forest.

In AR250, the general minimum mapping unit is 10 hectares for polygons that have identical combinations of attribute values. Smaller mapping units occur between identical land types if they have different forest cover or forest site quality.