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Increased phosphorus (P) fertilizer use and livestock production has fundamentally altered the global P cycle. We calculated spatially explicit P balances for cropland soils at 0.5° resolution based on the principal agronomic P inputs and outputs associated with production of 123 crops globally for the year 2000. Although agronomic inputs of P fertilizer (14.2 Tg of P·y⁻¹) and manure (9.6 Tg of P·y⁻¹) collectively exceeded P removal by harvested crops (12.3 Tg of P·y⁻¹) at the global scale, P deficits covered almost 30% of the global cropland area. There was massive variation in the magnitudes of these P imbalances across most regions, particularly Europe and South America. High P fertilizer application relative to crop P use resulted in a greater proportion of the intense P surpluses (>13 kg of P·ha⁻¹·y⁻¹) globally than manure P application. High P fertilizer application was also typically associated with areas of …