Data:World Vector Shoreline

World Vector Shoreline dataset information page

Short Description

World Vector Shoreline

Statement: World Vector Shoreline

Abstract: The World Vector Shoreline (WVS) is a digital data file at a nominal scale of 1:250000, containing the shorelines, international boundaries and country names of the world. The World Vector Shoreline is a standard US Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) product that has been designed for use in many applications. The WVS is divided into ten ocean basin area files. Together the ten files form a seamless world, with the exception of Central America, where there is an overlap between the Western North Atlantic file and the Eastern North Pacific File.

The main source material for the WVS was the DMA's Digital Landmass Blanking (DLMB) data which was derived primarily from the Joint Operations Graphics and coastal nautical charts produced by DMA. The DLMB data consists of a land/water flag file on a 3 by 3 arc-second interval grid. This raster data set was converted into vector form to create the WVS. For areas of the world not covered by the DLMB data (e.g. the Arctic and Antarctic), the shoreline was taken from the best available hard copy sources at a preferred scale of 1:250000. The WVS data are stored in chain-node format, and include tags to indicate the landside/waterside of the shoreline.

Data format

Data type:	Topography
Data origin:	Measured
Data format:	ASCII
Other format:
Data resolution:	Suitable for scales close to 250,000
Datum:	Horizontal Datum - World Geodetic System (WGS 84)

Data Coverage

Spatial data coverage: World
Temporal data coverage: Time snap shot
Time period covered: Not relevant, Tides: Mean High Water (MHW)

Availability

Download data: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/
Data source: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/