The European Atlas of the Seas provides information about Europe’s marine environment. Users can view predefined and ready to use maps, covering topics such as environment, tourism, security, energy, transport, litter, sea bottom, fishing activity, aquaculture, and much more.
Users can also benefit from an enriched catalogue with more than 270 map layers, covering a wide range of topics, to explore, collate and create their own maps. These maps can be printed, shared and embedded in articles or presentations. The Atlas is the ideal tool for schools, researchers and professionals, or anyone wishing to know more about the European seas and its coastal areas.
Dive into the European Atlas of the Seas
Stay on board! Do not miss what is happening. Watch this website for news articles.
Each week, a new “Map of the week” highlighting an interesting map layer is showcased in the Maritime Forum. Dive in and explore your Ocean!
Teachers' corner
Are you a teacher or an educator interested in ocean literacy? The teachers’ corner of the European Atlas of the Seas contains exercises for different age groups as well as communication tools. It is an open platform where you can find and share information, educational material, inspirations and much more!
Discover our teaching resources
Visit the Atlas Overview and have a look at the Atlas workshop presentations.
Learn how to create your own maps with the European Atlas of the Seas!
Latest Maps of the Week
This map shows the cargo ship maritime traffic on the European seas, represented by vessel density as the number of hours per month that ships spend in each square kilometre.
This map shows global ocean chlorophyll-a concentrations at the ocean surface. Chlorophyll is an indicator for the abundance of photosynthetic plankton, the primary producers of the ocean.
This map illustrates the abundance of marine bird sightings from the European Ocean Biodiversity Information System (EurOBIS) database and the network of marine Natura 2000 sites. It highlights an example site, the Zeebrugge-Heist Bay in Belgium.
This map shows the locations of European shellfish farms, seawater finfish farms and macroalgae production facilities. Six specific European Union aquaculture producer sites are highlighted using the Atlas’ ‘My Notes’ tool.
This map shows the main European rivers and lakes, the trends in the flow of river water into the European seas, and the relative sea level trends.
This map shows the location of 15 current European Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) projects.