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Coastline for Antarctica created from various mapping and remote sensing sources, consisting of the following coast types: ice coastline, rock coastline, grounding line, ice shelf and front, ice rumple, and rock against ice shelf. Covering all land and ice shelves south of 60°S. Suitable for topographic mapping and analysis. This dataset has been generalised from the high resolution vector polyline. Medium resolution versions of ADD data are suitable for scales smaller than 1:1,000,000, although certain regions will appear more detailed than others due to variable data availability and coastline characteristics.

Changes in v7.9 include updates to the South Orkney Islands, sections of the Filchner, West, Wilkins and George VI ice shelves, and ice fronts in eastern Dronning Maud Land and west of Law Dome.

Data compiled, managed and distributed by the Mapping and Geographic Information Centre and the UK Polar Data Centre, British Antarctic Survey on behalf of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

Dataset compiled from a variety of Antarctic map and satellite image sources. The dataset was created using ArcGIS and QGIS GIS software programmes and has been checked for basic topography and geometry checks, but does not contain strict topology. Quality varies across the dataset and certain areas where high resolution source data were available are suitable for large scale maps whereas other areas are only suitable for smaller scales. Each line has attributes detailing the source which can give the user further indications of its suitability for specific uses. Attributes also give information including 'surface' (e.g. grounding line, ice coastline, ice shelf front) and revision date. Compiled from sources ranging in time from 1990s-2024 - individual lines contain exact source dates. This medium resolution version has been generalised from the high resolution version. All areas <0.1km² not intersecting anything else were deleted and the ‘simplify’ tool was used in ArcGIS with the ‘retainc ritical points’ algorithm and a smoothing tolerance of 50 m.