The Nippon Foundation-Gebco Seabed 2030
20 April 2026
The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project today announces that 28.7% of the world’s ocean floor has now been mapped, with almost five million square kilometres of data added over the past year.
The 2026 figure was announced by Mitsuyuki Unno, Executive Director of The Nippon Foundation, at the Assembly of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), currently underway in Monaco.
Bringing together delegations from 104 Member States, alongside observers from international organisations, maritime authorities and industry, the triennial Assembly provides an opportunity to review global progress in hydrography and set priorities for the years ahead. The announcement also reflects a long-standing connection as the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) was initiated in 1903 by Prince Albert I of Monaco – a pioneering oceanographer who recognised the need for a coordinated global effort to map the planet’s seafloor.
Established in 2017, Seabed 2030 is a collaborative project between The Nippon Foundation and GEBCO, which seeks to inspire and accelerate the complete mapping of the world’s ocean, and to compile all the data into the freely available GEBCO Ocean Map. The Project is formally endorsed as a Decade Action of the UN Ocean Decade. GEBCO is a joint programme of the IHO and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, and is the only organisation with a mandate to map the entire ocean floor.
The latest update represents approximately 104 million square kilometres of mapped seabed – an area equivalent to more than two-thirds of the Earth’s land surface. Over the past year alone, a further five million square kilometres of data have been incorporated into the GEBCO Grid.
