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Vegetation or land cover maps have been made directly or indirectly available for the entire territory of China. The certainties and uncertainties of land cover statistics were analyzed by comparing three data sources: China's Vegetation Map. IGPB DISCover, and University of Maryland Product. Great similarities in the statistics of 7 aggregated and cover types were found among the three data sources, particularly between the two global land cover maps. the per-pixel agreement between any 2 of 3 maps was between 38.0%--51.4%; the per-pixel agreement among all three maps was only 27.1%. Certainties were found in regions where vegetation types are typical and human land use practice is relatively diversified. Systematic and multidisciplinary efforts are necessary to promote accurate mapping of nationwide land cover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]