Landsat Thematic Mapper data, collected over central Michigan in the U.S.A., in October 1982, were digitally analysed to determine qualitatively and quantitatively their utility and potential to classify nine natural resources categories (e.g. red pine, jack pine, scotch pine, low conifers, hardwoods, grassland, water, wetland and other). Supervised classification with a maximum likelihood decision rule was employed to 22 especially selected single-, two-, three-, four- and six-band combinations (thermal band was excluded).