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Data

Biogeographical regions

Data
Prod-ID: DAT-85-en
Created 08 Jan 2016 Published 28 Jan 2016 Last modified 02 Sep 2021
3 min read
Europe 2016 - The biogeographical regions dataset contains the official delineations used in the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) and for the EMERALD Network set up under the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern Convention). Changes in this version: The Pannonian region of Serbia was missing in previous versions and this has been corrected in the 2016 version. Some Arctic islands which do not belong to the European part of Russia and which were erroneously included in previous versions have been removed.

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Spatial Lite Version 3.

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Coordinate reference system (ESRI friendly)
INSPIRE compliant metadata set
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Additional information

Metadata

Additional information

Biogeographical boundaries were obtained from the EU Member States and from the Emerald Network countries. These were merged together to produce a European wide map of the biogeographical regions independent of political boundaries. A number of the regions were updated during the work under Article 17 of the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) and in 2010 the Standing Committee to the Bern Convention adopted a number of changes according to progress in the setting-up of the Emerald Network.

Changes in version 2011: 
• Improved boundaries for the following countries: Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Sweden.

Changes in version 2015:
• Update of coast lines (the Caspian and Black Sea)
• Update Ukraine from continental to Pannonian region
• Improved boundaries for the following countries: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan

Changes in 2015, version 2:
• Errors in the delineation of the ATL region have been corrected.

The scale varies inside the dataset. Some regions, e.g. in EU countries, are 1:1 000 000 while other regions are 1:1 000 000 or even 1:10 000 000.