London, 20 April 2026 – The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project today announces that 28.7% of the world’s ocean floor has now been mapped, with almost five million square kilometres of data added over the past year.
The 2026 figure was announced by Mitsuyuki Unno, Executive Director of The Nippon Foundation, at the Assembly of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), currently underway in Monaco.
Bringing together delegations from 104 Member States, alongside observers from international organisations, maritime authorities and industry, the triennial Assembly provides an opportunity to review global progress in hydrography and set priorities for the years ahead. The announcement also reflects a long-standing connection as the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) was initiated in 1903 by Prince Albert I of Monaco – a pioneering oceanographer who recognised the need for a coordinated global effort to map the planet’s seafloor.
Established in 2017, Seabed 2030 is a collaborative project between The Nippon Foundation and GEBCO, which seeks to inspire and accelerate the complete mapping of the world’s ocean, and to compile all the data into the freely available GEBCO Ocean Map. The Project is formally endorsed as a Decade Action of the UN Ocean Decade. GEBCO is a joint programme of the IHO and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, and is the only organisation with a mandate to map the entire ocean floor.
The latest update represents approximately 104 million square kilometres of mapped seabed – an area equivalent to more than two-thirds of the Earth’s land surface. Over the past year alone, a further five million square kilometres of data have been incorporated into the GEBCO Grid.
This progress reflects ongoing contributions from a growing and increasingly diverse global community. A total of 220 organisations have now contributed, including 15 new contributors over the past year, with first-time data contributions from countries including Malaysia, Morocco, Papua New Guinea and Saudi Arabia, among others.
Commenting on the announcement, Seabed 2030 Director Jamie McMichael-Phillips said: “This update reflects what the global community can achieve when data is shared openly and collaboratively. Seabed 2030 exists to help bring those contributions together, and we are seeing that collective effort translate into meaningful results. We are grateful to The Nippon Foundation and GEBCO for their ongoing support, which enables us to accelerate progress towards a complete map of the ocean floor.”
Announcing the update, Mitsuyuki Unno, Executive Director of The Nippon Foundation, said: “The progress reflected in the 2026 Grid demonstrates what can be achieved through sustained international collaboration. At The Nippon Foundation, we are committed to supporting people and organisations working to deepen our understanding of the ocean, and to strengthening the connections between them – helping to ensure that knowledge of the seabed can be built upon and passed on to future generations.”
Evert Flier, GEBCO Chair, added: “The GEBCO Grid is a global, collaborative dataset that brings together bathymetric data from a wide range of sources into a consistent and authoritative reference. This is the work of hundreds of people from around the world, working behind the scenes and forming an ever-growing GEBCO community. With each update, it provides an increasingly robust foundation for ocean science and related applications – and today’s announcement reflects the steady progress being made in building a more complete picture of the ocean floor.”
The 2026 update includes significant regional increases in mapped coverage. The ROPME Sea Area more than tripled in coverage, increasing from approximately 6.4% to 20.5%. Coverage also increased across the Eastern Atlantic, North Indian Ocean, Meso American and Caribbean Sea, and North Sea regions. At the national level, substantial increases were recorded within several Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).
Further highlights from the past year include the incorporation of a wide range of new and previously unshared datasets, including:
- Significant contributions from major data repositories, including NOAA-NCEI and PANGAEA
- Expanded coastal mapping through datasets such as the Global Coastal SDB Dataset from Copernicus/EOMAP, adding new coverage in areas not represented in previous Grid releases
- Notable satellite-derived bathymetry from the Greenwater Foundation, in partnership with TCarta and Caladan Oceanic
- Additional bathymetric data from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), expanding coverage in the North Pacific
- Deep-water mapping data from NOAA-led Seascape Alaska campaigns
- Multibeam survey data contributed by the Directorate of Hydrography and Navigation of the Brazilian Navy
- Multibeam data around the Comoros, contributed by the Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM), marking a new contributing organisation
All data collected and shared with the Seabed 2030 project is included in the free and publicly available GEBCO global grid, supporting ocean science, policy and informed decision-making.
ENDS
For media inquiries contact:
Pegah Souri
external.relations@seabed2030.