FAO Major Fishing Areas for Statistical Purposes
FAO Major Fishing Areas for Statistical Purposes are arbitrary areas, the boundaries of which were determined in consultation with international fishery agencies on various considerations, including (i) the boundary of natural regions and the natural divisions of oceans and seas; (ii) the boundaries of adjacent statistical fisheries bodies already established in inter-governmental conventions and treaties; (iii) existing national practices; (iv) national boundaries; (v) the longitude and latitude grid system; (vi) the distribution of the aquatic fauna; and (vii) the distribution of the resources and the environmental conditions within an area.
Simple
- Date (Publication)
- 2008-02-15
- Date (Revision)
- 2013-03-12
- Date (Revision)
- 2014-04-17
- Date (Revision)
- 2024-06-24
- Date (Revision)
- 2024-07-08
- Date (Revision)
- 2024-10-22
- Date (Revision)
- 2024-10-27
- Date (lastRevision)
- 2026-02-02
- Edition
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2026.1.0
- Citation identifier
- ac02a460-da52-11dc-9d70-0017f293bd28
- Cited responsible party
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Owner
- Presentation form
- Digital map
- Purpose
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The rationale of the FAO Major Fishing Areas has been that the areas should, as far as possible, coincide with the areas of competence of other fishery commissions when existing. This system facilitates comparison of data, and improves the possibilities of cooperation in statistical matters in general.
- Status
- published
- Point of contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Owner Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher UN-FAO - Fisheries and Aquaculture Division (NFI). Statistics and Information Branch (NFIS)
Emmanuel Blondel
Point of contact UN-FAO - Fisheries and Aquaculture Division (NFI). Statistics and Information Branch (NFIS)
Aureliano Gentile
Point of contact
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
- Resource format
-
Name Version application/zip
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General
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FAO
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FIGIS
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fishery
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fisheries
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ocean management
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resource management
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- Agrovoc
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fishing areas
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fishery statistics
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world
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- GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
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Area management/restriction/regulation zones and reporting units
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Statistical units
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- Use limitation
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
- Use limitation
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Usage subject to mandatory citation: FAO. 2024. FAO Major Fishing Areas for Statistical Purposes. In: FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Division [online]. Accessed on <DD Month YYYY>. https://www.fao.org/fishery/geonetwork?uuid=ac02a460-da52-11dc-9d70-0017f293bd28 License: CC-BY 4.0
- Use limitation
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This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.en). By using this database, you agree to be bound by the terms of this license and the FAO Statistical Database Terms of Use ( https://www.fao.org/contact-us/terms/db-terms-of-use/en/)
- Use limitation
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Disclaimer: The designations employed and the presentation of material in the map(s) are for illustration only and do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of FAO concerning the legal or constitutional status of any country, territory or sea area or concerning the delimitation of frontiers or boundaries.
- Use constraints
- License
- Spatial representation type
- Vector
- Language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
))
- Supplemental Information
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For various historical reasons the Areas in the Pacific were not so developed, with the exception of Area 87 corresponding to the CPPS area of competence. Initiatives for closer cooperation between agencies in the interest of better data, not only in the field of tunas, have suggested that some changes are necessary to the present FAO fishing areas/boundaries in the Pacific.
The boundaries of fishing areas could be modified and adjusted according to new requirements, but it is inadvisable to introduce too frequent amendments to the already established areas. Revisions to boundaries should only be introduced after consultation with all the national fishery authorities and fishery agencies concerned with the areas under revision. Unless there are other over-riding reasons, boundaries lines should be drawn along 5° lines of longitude and latitude.
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG / 4326
- Distribution format
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Name Version application/zip
- Distributor contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Owner
- OnLine resource
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Statement
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The data management workflow combines both GIS edition of the a master data file using the Quantum GIS software (for maintenance of the FAO area delineations), and the geoflow R package (available at https://github.com/r-geoflow/geoflow) to automate the post-processing of data layers and their publication, using the following steps
- Description
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The FAO statistical areas master data file was processed to derive a unique FAO AREAS MultiPolygon dataset including the FAO major areas and its breakdown, not erased by coastline, to allow users applying custom coastline data resolutions. Output name: FAO_AREAS_NOCOASTLINE
- Rationale
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Master data processing
- Description
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The above FAO_AREAS_NOCOASTLINE data layer is processed to erase the areas using coastline data at an intermediate resolution, aligning on the UN Geospatial countries & territories data. Output name: FAO_AREAS_ERASE
- Rationale
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Erased by coastline - intermediate resolution following UN Geospatial countries & territories
- Description
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The above FAO_AREAS_NOCOASTLINE data layer is processed to erase the areas using coastline data at a low resolution, aligning on the former UNCS countries & territories data. Output name: FAO_AREAS_ERASE_LOWRES
- Rationale
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Erased by coastline - low resolution following former UNCS countries & territories
- Description
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The above data layers were processed to put at disposal single part polygon datasets - instead of MultiPolygon - datalayers: Output names: FAO_AREAS_SINGLEPART (no coastline), FAO_AREAS_ERASE (erased by coastline - intermediate resolution), FAO_AREAS_ERASE_LOWRES (erased by coastline - low resolution)
- Rationale
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Processing of single part polygon data layers
- Description
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Data layers are published as geospatial web layers in the FAO Fisheries & Aquaculture GeoServer ( https://www.fao.org/fishery/geoserver). Geographic information metadata is made available in the FAO Fisheries & Aquaculture GeoNetwork ( https://www.fao.org/fishery/geonetwork) and through the GeoInfo portal (available at https://www.fao.org/fishery/geoserver/geoinfo/)
- Rationale
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Upload and publication
- Compliance code
- Yes
- Language
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eng
- Included with dataset
- No
- Feature catalogue citation
Metadata
- File identifier
- ac02a460-da52-11dc-9d70-0017f293bd28 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Date stamp
- 2026-02-02T21:49:45.353Z
- Metadata standard name
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ISO 19115:2003 Geographic information - Metadata
- Metadata standard version
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ISO 19115:2003
- Metadata author
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role UN-FAO - Fisheries and Aquaculture Division (NFI). Statistics and Information Branch (NFIS)
Emmanuel Blondel
Point of contact
- Dataset URI
-
ac02a460-da52-11dc-9d70-0017f293bd28
- Other language
-
Language Character encoding French UTF8 Spanish; Castilian UTF8 Arabic UTF8 Russian UTF8 Chinese(Other) UTF8 English UTF8
Overviews
Spatial extent
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