GIS has become an indispensable tool for managing and displaying marine spatial data. However, a unique georeferenced standard of marine place names and boundaries was yet to be established. As such, an online, open-access, standardised, hierarchical list of geographic names – Marine Regions – was developed, linking each of these names to information and maps of the geographic location. The objectives are to capture all geographic marine names worldwide, including ocean basins, seas, seamounts, sandbanks, ridges, bays and other marine geographical place names and attributes, and to display univocally the boundaries of marine biogeographic or other managed marine areas in order to facilitate marine data management, marine (geographic) research and the management of marine areas. Marine Regions is freely available at www.marineregions.org. |
