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Land cover classification is one of the most important applications of POLSAR images. In this paper, a hybrid biogeography-based optimization support vector machine (HBBOSVM) has been introduced to classify POLSAR images of RADARSAT 2 in band C acquired from San Francisco, USA. The main purpose of this classification is to minimize the number of features and maximize classification accuracy. The proposed method consists of three main steps: preprocessing, feature selection and classification. As preprocessing, radiometric calibration, speckle reduction and feature extraction have been performed. In the proposed HBBO, the combination of onlooker bee of artificial bee colony (ABC) and migration operator of biogeography-based optimization has been applied in order to optimal feature selection. Then, SVM has been used to classify the pixels into specific labels of land-covers. The ground truth samples have been generated by google earth image, Pauli RGB image, high resolution image and national land cover database (NLCD 2006). The performance of HBBOSVM has been compared with BBOSVM, ABCSVM, particle swarm optimization support vector machine (PSOSVM) and the results of previous studies. In addition, the performance of HBBO is evaluated upon 20 well-known benchmark problems. According to the obtained results, the overall accuracy and average accuracy of HBBOSVM are 96.01% and 93.37% respectively which is the best result in comparison with other results. The HBBOSVM has better performance than other algorithms in terms of overall accuracy, kappa coefficient, average accuracy, convergence trend, and stability. In addition, the HBBO can be considered as a successful meta-heuristic for benchmark problems. This paper displays that the combined approach of optimization and machine learning methods provides powerful results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]