Data on coral species occurrences in Japan since 1929

This paper describes the species occurrence record of zooxanthellate reef-building corals at 1047 sites on the Japanese coast, recorded from 1929 to 2017. The dataset includes 484 confirmed scientific species names compiled from 152 literature sources, most of which were written in Japanese and published as gray literature in local journals or individual reports. Scientific names were consolidated under currently accepted nomenclature based on the World Register of Marine Species. Further revision of species names was made by referring to monographs on temperate coral species of Japan, along with expert knowledge. The dataset includes the coral species recorded each year at each study site, the geographical location of each site, and the scientific names of the corals. Three supporting datasets were created, containing a list of literature, the names of the sites and synonymization and confirmation of the coral names. This up-to-date collection of data is a contribution to the study of coral biogeography and conservation planning, as well as long-term changes in coral species distributions in response to climate change.