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Marine protected areas in the United States

Explore the NOAA 2024 inventory of US marine protected areas. Compare protection types, managing agencies, and marine areas.

Preview of Marine protected areas in the United States
NOAA National Ocean Service, Marine Protected Areas Center. Inventory v2024. Boundaries simplified on 2026-09-15.

About this dataset

  • This map uses the NOAA marine protected area inventory labelled v2024.
  • Sites can overlap, and protection rules differ between sites. Read the protection and managing-agency fields.
  • Use this map to compare protected areas and add notes about marine conservation.
  • Boundaries are simplified for display. The dataset is not a legal document or a navigation chart.

Source and licence

NOAA Marine Protected Areas Center

Licence: NOAA data use terms

GeoJSON download details

The download includes all 981 features as area groups, areas. Coordinates use longitude and latitude in WGS84.

The preparation date is when we prepared this dataset. Read the source notes for the dates covered by the data.

GeoJSON fields 8
name
Protected area name.
site_id
NOAA site identifier.
government
Level of government responsible for the site.
protection
Source protection category.
agency
Managing agency.
established
Reported establishment year.
marine_area_km2
Marine area in square kilometres reported by NOAA.
source_url
NOAA inventory source.