To help you analyze fishing activity around the world, Global Fishing Watch provides reference layers that show important ocean boundaries.
We do not create these boundaries ourselves. Instead, we source them from the external organizations that are responsible for defining and managing each area. If an official source is not available, we use data from leading experts in that field. Our team reviews and updates these layers annually to ensure accuracy. The only exception to that is our marine protected area layer, which is updated monthly.
While we strive to use the most accurate information available, Global Fishing Watch is not responsible for any changes or errors made by the original data providers.
See below for a full list of our data sources. All future updates will be listed here.
Exclusive economic zones
Layer name – EEZs
Short description – A 200 nautical mile maritime boundary for all coastal nations.
Source – https://www.marineregions.org/downloads.php
Citation – Flanders Marine Institute (2024). Union of the ESRI Country shapefile and the exclusive economic zones (version 4). Available online at https://www.marineregions.org/. https://doi.org/10.14284/698.
Attribution – Copyright Flanders Marine Institute (2020) – marineregions.org.
Last updated – 2023-10-25
License – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Notes – The source data from Marine Regions includes the entirety of each country’s boundaries. To reduce complexity and limit our findings to coastal waters, we reduce the polygons in the layer to include only a 0.1 degree buffer — about 10 kilometers — inward from the coastline for each country. The buffering is applied using a land mask from the Natural Earth 10 m land data set. Countries with no coastline are filtered out.
Marine protected areas
Layer name – MPAs (WDPA)
Short description – Marine protected areas from The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) via protectedplanet.net
Source – https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/search-areas?filters[db_type][]=wdpa&filters[is_type][]=marine
Citation –UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Center (UNEP-WCMC) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN )(2022), Protected Planet: The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) and World Database on Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (WD-OECM) [Online], August 2022, Cambridge, UK: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN. Available at: www.protectedplanet.net.
Attribution – You must ensure that one of the following citations is always clearly reproduced in any publication or analysis involving the Protected Planet Materials in any derived form or format. Use this citation for any downloads of Protected Planet Materials from ProtectedPlanet.net: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (year), Protected Planet: The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) [On-line], [insert month/year of the version downloaded], Cambridge, UK: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN. Available at: www.protectedplanet.net.
Last updated – 2020-11-01 (Updated monthly)
License – Non-commercial use https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/legal
Notes – N/A
Regional fisheries management organizations
Layer name – RFMOs
Short description – Regional fisheries management organizations
Source – https://geonetwork.d4science.org/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home
For individual RFMOs, use this URL template
https://geonetwork.d4science.org/geonetwork/srv/en/metadata.show?uuid=fao-rfb-map-[rfmo-id]
Citation – © FAO, 2019. FAO Regional Fishery Bodies. [RFMO Name]. In: FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department (FI) [online]. Rome. Updated 2019-02-21
FAO Map Catalog
Attribution – © FAO, 2019. FAO Regional Fishery Bodies.
Last updated – 2019-02-21
License – Public
Notes –
Four RFMOs within this layer were added from sources outside of the FAO. These include the Commissions for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) Primary Area, Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), and North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC).
CCSBT is defined as the CCSBT Statistical Areas used by the RFMO. This and the CCSBT Primary Area, a subset of the Statistical Areas, were provided through correspondence with the CCSBT Secretariat. These areas are not a designated Convention Area, but the primary area of southern bluefin tuna distribution. Last Updated: 2022-03-24
The NPFC Convention Area was taken directly from the NPFC website: https://www.npfc.int/about_npfc/convention_and_npfc_area_of_application/npfc-shape-file
The IOTC Convention Area was taken directly from the IOTC website. IOTC Secretariat. IOTC Reference Data Catalogue v1.0. 2023-05-12. Available at: Permalink
The ICCAT Convention Area was provided directly by the ICCAT Secretariat on 2022-08-25.
FAO major fishing areas
Layer name – FAO, major_fao
Short description – FAO MAJOR Statistical Areas
Source – https://www.fao.org/gfcm/data/maps/fras/ru/
Citation – © FAO, 2020. FAO Statistical Areas for Fishery Purposes. In: FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department [online]. Rome. http://www.fao.org/fishery/area/search/en
Attribution – © FAO, 2020
Last updated – Manual update 2022-01-19, original source revision date 2014-04-17
License – Public
Notes – A minor adjustment was applied to the FAO provided No Coastline version of these boundaries layers to adjust for missing regions.
High seas
Layer name – High Seas
Short description – World High Seas v2
Source – https://www.marineregions.org/downloads.php
Citation – Flanders Marine Institute (2024). Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase: High Seas, version 2. Available online at https://www.marineregions.org/. https://doi.org/10.14284/696.
Attribution – Copyright Flanders Marine Institute – http://marineregions.org
Last updated – 2024-10-10
License – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Notes – Major high seas pockets, or areas of high seas surrounded by other non-high seas areas,are embedded within this layer.
12 NM boundary
Layer name – eez12nm
Short description – World 12 Nautical Miles Zone, referred to as territorial seas.
Source – https://www.marineregions.org/downloads.php
Citation – Flanders Marine Institute (2024). Union of the ESRI Country shapefile and the Exclusive Economic Zones (version 4). Available online at https://www.marineregions.org/. https://doi.org/10.14284/698. Consulted on 2025-05-26.
Attribution – Copyright Flanders Marine Institute – marineregions.org
Last updated – 2023-10-25
License – CC-BY
Notes – 12 Nautical Mile boundary that is the limit of a nation’s territorial waters. From Marine Regions
Protected Seas
Layer name – protectedseas
Short description – Contains the regions with category IUCN MPAs
Source – https://map.navigatormap.org/resources/downloads/NavigatorGlobal_030325.json
Citation – Navigator Data Download, ProtectedSeas®, https://navigatormap.org/data-request (2025-03-17)
Attribution – ProtectedSeas
Last updated – 2025-03-03
License – CC-BY 4.0
Notes – Version 2 (V2) of the Navigator data is currently being published on a country-by-country basis as our team completes it. V2 adds new activity and fishing type fields, fields to relate parent sites to subzones, and fields to track how regulations and boundaries have changed from version 1 (V1) to V2.
Preferential access areas for small-scale fishing
Layer name – duke_paa
Short description – Preferential Access Area – Duke
Source – https://research.repository.duke.edu/concern/datasets/79407z51r?locale=en
Citation – DeLand, S., Vegh, T., Cleary, J., Basurto, X., Virdin, J., & Halpin, P. N. (2025). A global dataset of preferential access areas for small-scale fishing. Duke Research Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.7924/r40s01h5j
Attribution – NA
Last updated – 2025-05-20
License – CC-BY
Notes – The original source came with 3 coordinates so we had to normalize to 2 coordinates to use.
Please note that there is no singular definition of a preferential access area, or PAA. Therefore each country will decide what activities, vessels, gear types, etc. are prohibited or restricted in the PAA. For more information of the specific designation of each PAA, please see the law or regulation in FAOLex.
Data Sources:
Flanders Marine Institute (2023). Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase, version 12. Available online at https://www.marineregions.org/. https://doi.org/10.14284/628
Esri (2014). World countries. [NOTE: This dataset has been updated by Esri, but the 2014 version was used so the shoreline would match with the maritime boundary dataset.]
GEBCO Compilation Group (2023) GEBCO 2023 Grid (doi:10.5285/f98b053b-0cbc-6c23-e053-6c86abc0af7b)
Fisheries restricted areas
Layer name – fra_gfcm_fao
Short description – Fisheries Restriction Areas – GFCM FAO
Source – https://www.fao.org/gfcm/data/maps/fras/ru/
Citation – NA
Attribution – Downloaded from General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) website, feature layer created by Roberto.Emma_hqfao
Last updated – 2025-05-20
License – CC-BY
Notes –The layer was taken from the GFCM website but manually adjusted to reflect the original coordinates of the FRAs as stipulated in the document REC. GFCM/29/2005/1