A dataset of glacier inventory in Western China during 2017–2018

The glaciers in Western China are highly sensitive to climate change and change greatly. Since the second glacier inventory in China, there has been a lack of systematic investigation on the glaciers in Western China. Based on the second glacier inventory data, this dataset has completed the extraction of glacier boundaries, quality checking of boundaries, uncertainty analysis of area and updating of glacier attributes in Western China during 2017–2018 through various data sources such as 315 Landsat remote sensing images and SRTM, combined with processing software of ArcGIS and Google Earth, and through manual visual interpretation. The results show that 53,238 glaciers existed in Western China in 2018, with a total area of 47,174.21 ± 19.93 km2, area error of ±0.04% of the total glacier area. In the southeastern Tibetan Plateau where the second glacier inventory in China is not yet completed, there are 13,066 glaciers with a total area of 7611.25±4.64 km2. This dataset provides data support for studies on glacier changes and the response of glaciers to climate change in Western China.