Nationally designated areas for public access (vector data) - August 2025

The European inventory of Nationally designated areas holds information about protected designated areas and their designation types, which directly or indirectly create protected areas. The Nationally designated areas' dataset is the official source of protected area information from the 38 European countries*, members of the Eionet, to the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA).

This metadata refers to the public version of the Nationally designate areas dataset version 23 (2025). The EEA does not have permission to distribute some or all sites reported by Estonia, Ireland and Türkiye. The internal version of this dataset "Nationally designated areas for internal use - version 23, Jun. 2025", from which this dataset is derived, contains all designated areas and its access is restricted.

Two versions of the public dataset are provided. The full dataset ("NatDA_2025_v01_public") includes the entire geographical coverage including nationally designated areas in overseas entities. The "NatDA_2025_v01_public_EuropeEPSG3035" version includes only continental Europe, i.e. excludes the overseas entities. Both versions are provided in GPKG formats.

The dataset is accompanied by the following tabular data: NatDA_2025_v01_public_DesignatedArea.csv, which includes information on the nationally designated sites and designated boundaries for public dissemination; and NatDA_2025_v01_public_DesignationType.csv, which contains information about designation types and the national and international legislative instruments, which directly or indirectly create protected designated areas in Europe. Both tabular datasets is accessible from here: https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/f97b46fc-2204-4018-bf50-4ffac4e45e78

* Including Kosovo (UNSCR 1244/99), which designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.