GSHHS - A Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database

GSHHS is a high-resolution shoreline data set amalgamated from two databases in the public domain. The data have undergone extensive processing and are free of internal inconsistencies such as erratic points and crossing segments. The shorelines are constructed entirely from hierarchically arranged closed polygons. The data can be used to simplify data searches and data selections, or to study the statistical characteristics of shorelines and land-masses. It comes with access software and routines to facilitate decimation based on a standard line-reduction algorithm.

Availability of the GSHHS data (v1.5)

• Download GSHHS data
  
  The link above is to the NGDC server, GSHHS data are also available for direct download from the SOEST server. Please see the readme.txt file for full documentation (The latest files are version 1.3, plus the 1.5 software supplement).
  
  
• Download GSHHS Shapefiles version 1.3
  
  Shapefiles created by David Divins at NGDC from GSHHS. Files are available individually or as a single tar/gzip file.
  
  

More information about GSHHS

• GSHHS is developed and maintained by
  
  Dr. Paul Wessel, SOEST, University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, HI. wessel@soest.hawaii.edu, and
  
  Dr. Walter H. F. Smith, NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry, National Oceanographic Data Center, Silver Spring, MD. Walter.HF.Smith@noaa.gov.
  
  
• Processing and assembly of the GSHHS data is described in:
  
  Wessel, P., and W. H. F. Smith, A Global Self-consistent, Hierarchical, High-resolution Shoreline Database, J. Geophys. Res., 101, #B4, pp. 8741-8743, 1996.