NOAA Electronic Navigational Charts for U.S. Coastal and Marine GIS

NOAA ENC Direct to GIS provides access to all available large-scale NOAA Electronic Navigational Charts in GIS/CAD formats for non-navigational purposes. The data, developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is in the S-57 international standard and includes coastal topography, bathymetry, landmarks, and marine boundaries. The portal uses Internet mapping service technology to allow display, query, and download.

Use Cases

• Map coastal topography and bathymetry for environmental impact studies based on the detailed representation of the marine environment.
• Analyze marine boundaries and administrative areas for regulatory planning based on the described boundary features.
• Identify nautical landmarks and infrastructure for coastal management based on the inclusion of beacons, buoys, and built-up areas.
• Create contiguous maps of the U.S. coastline by aggregating features from multiple ENCs as described in the aggregation process.

Strengths

• Data conforms to the S-57 international standard developed by the International Hydrographic Organization.
• Provides a detailed representation of the U.S. coastal and marine environment including topography, bathymetry, and landmarks.
• Aggregating all NOAA ENCs creates a contiguous depiction of the coastline.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Features are limited to the geographic region depicted in each particular ENC.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Developed to support marine transportation infrastructure and coastal management, converted from native S-57 format for GIS access.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-10 19:32:07.635790; freshness should be verified.

Geography

U.S. coastal and marine environment