U.S. Outer Continental Shelf Boundary Polygons for Cartography

Polygon features delineate areas of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf as defined by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The data is provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior and was last updated in April 2026. These boundaries are intended for cartographic representation, not for official legal or area calculations.

Use Cases

• Visualizing the spatial extent of BOEM's leasing jurisdiction using polygon geometry for thematic maps.
• Integrating maritime boundary polygons with other oceanographic datasets for regional analysis.
• Creating base layers for web mapping applications focused on U.S. offshore resources and federal waters.

Strengths

• Data is sourced from the authoritative U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
• Available in multiple geospatial formats including GeoJSON, KML, and GPKG for interoperability.

Limitations

• The publisher explicitly states the data is not an official record of exact boundaries and should not be used for area calculations.
• Specific metrics like row count, spatial resolution, or update frequency are not provided in the metadata.

Provenance

Source

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), U.S. Department of the Interior.

Collection Method

Defined by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and related U.S. and international law.

Freshness

Data was last updated on 2026-04-04, indicating a future update is scheduled.

Geography

U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, including areas within and beyond 200 nautical miles from the baseline.