Protected marine areas

Germany protects nearly half its marine waters while ocean giants like Norway and Iceland barely reach 1%.

OECDUpdated Dec '25

Summary

Top 5 Marine Conservation Leaders

1Germany
45.3 %
2Chile
41 %
3Australia
39 %
4Belgium
35.8 %
5France
33.9 %
Dataset Median
12.7 %

Bottom 5 Marine Conservation Leaders

37Norway
0.816 %
38Peru
0.458 %
39Israel
0.446 %
40Iceland
0.412 %
41Turkey
0.147 %

Comparison

45x

Germany protects 45x more than Iceland

Trend

35%+

Top 4 all protect over 35% of waters

Leader

#1

Germany leads despite small coastline

Data

41 results

1Germany45.3 %
2Chile41.0 %
3Australia39.0 %
4Belgium35.8 %
5France33.9 %
6Netherlands31.5 %
7New Zealand29.8 %
8United Kingdom29.6 %
9Colombia28.8 %
10Brazil26.6 %

Map

Protected marine areas

0.147 %
45.3 %

Insights

Generated automatically using AI

Comparison

45x

Germany protects 45x more marine area than Iceland despite both being developed nations

Trend

35%+

Top 4 countries all protect over 35% of marine waters showing elite conservation tier

Leader

#1

Germany leads global marine protection despite having relatively small coastline

Outlier

0.82%

Norway protects less than 1% despite having world's second longest coastline

Gap

19.0%

United States ranks 15th with only 19% protection despite massive marine territory

Methodology

This dataset is sourced from the OECD through its official SDMX data service.
Rankdat does not alter or model the underlying values — we only clean formats, standardize country names, and reshape the data for visualization.

OECD compiles these indicators from a mix of sources including national statistical offices, international household surveys (such as Gallup World Poll, EU-SILC, ISSP), and harmonised administrative datasets.
Each indicator follows the definitions and structure specified in the OECD’s Data Structure Definition (DSD) for this dataflow.

Because indicators originate from different countries and surveys, collection years, sampling methods, and questionnaire wording may vary. OECD applies harmonisation rules to improve comparability, but differences in national methodology may still affect cross-country comparisons.

Full definitions, data collection notes, and quality documentation are available through the OECD metadata portal linked in the Sources section.

Source