Terrain classification is still a challenging issue in image processing, especially with high resolution satellite images. The well-known obstacles include low accuracy in the detection of targets, especially for the case of man-made structures, such as buildings and roads. In this paper, we present an efficient approach to classify and detect building footprints, foliage, grass and road from high resolution grayscale satellite images. Our contribution is to build a strong classifier using AdaBoost based on a combination of co-occurrence and Haar-like features. We expect that the inclusion of Harr-like feature improves the classification performance of the man-made structures, since Haar-like feature is extracted from corner features and rectangle features. Also, the AdaBoost algorithm selects only critical features and generates an extremely efficient classifier. Experimental result indicates that the classification accuracy of AdaBoost classifier is much higher than that of the conventional classifier using back propagation algorithm. Also, the inclusion of Harr-like feature significantly improves the classification accuracy. The accuracy of the proposed method is 98.4% for the target detection and 92.8% for the classification on high resolution satellite images.