What is a Ramsar site?

A Ramsar site is a wetland of international importance designated under the Ramsar Convention of 1971. UK sites cover estuaries, marshes, peatlands and coastal flats. They are given strong protection through national planning policy, which treats them on a par with European protected sites.

Which nations does this cover?

All four UK nations: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The data comes from each nation's own statutory nature conservation body, so the nation field always matches the authority that designated the site.

Why use the per-nation custodian layers instead of the UK-wide JNCC layer?

The JNCC consolidated layer blends the four nations together, which muddies the nation field. We read Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, NatureScot and DAERA directly, so each record traces back to a single named custodian and one nation.

Is Ramsar a statutory designation?

Ramsar is an international treaty designation rather than a domestic statutory one. In practice UK national planning policy gives Ramsar sites the same level of protection as European Special Protection Areas and Special Areas of Conservation, so planners treat them as a hard constraint.

How current is the data, and how do I get it?

We publish a monthly snapshot, versioned so you can pin a release. It is served read-only over REST at /v1/conservation. Query by point, radius, bounding box or polygon, or fetch a single site by its stable id.

What licence applies?

Open Government Licence v3.0 throughout, from named public-sector custodians, with per-custodian attribution returned on every record. We deliberately exclude non-OGL sources so commercial reuse stays clean. The product is an annual licence; the /types vocabulary endpoint is free to evaluate.

How many Ramsar sites are there?

154 across the UK: 73 in England, around 10 in Wales, around 51 in Scotland and 20 in Northern Ireland. The English and Northern Irish counts are exact; the Welsh and Scottish figures are approximate and track each custodian's current register.

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Ramsar Wetlands

Every UK Ramsar wetland of international importance, reconciled from Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, NatureScot and DAERA into one schema with a stable id and a point you can map.

154

Ramsar wetlands

Nations covered

EPSG:4326

Coordinate system

OGL v3.0

Licence

Overview

About this dataset

A Ramsar site is a wetland of international importance: estuaries, marshes, peatlands and coastal flats that the UK has designated under the Ramsar Convention of 1971. This dataset holds every UK Ramsar wetland, 154 sites across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, each with a name, a designation date, its area in hectares and a point you can map.

Each site is designated under the Convention and given strong protection through national planning policy, which treats Ramsar sites on a par with European protected sites. We take the data from the body that holds it in each nation: Natural England (73 sites), Natural Resources Wales (around 10), NatureScot (around 51) and DAERA's Northern Ireland Environment Agency (20). We use each nation's own custodian layer rather than the UK-wide JNCC consolidated layer, so the nation field stays clean and every record traces back to the authority that designated it.

The four registers come back as one schema with one stable identity per site, in the form design.conservation.ENG.ramsar_site.{reference}. Every feature carries valid EPSG:4326 geometry, reprojected server-side from British National Grid and the Irish Grid. Welsh sites carry a name_cy where the source provides one. A date_precision flag tells you whether a designation date is exact to the day or only known to the year.

Query it over REST at /v1/conservation by point, radius, bounding box or polygon, or fetch a single site by id. The public /types vocabulary is free to evaluate. Everything is Open Government Licence v3.0, with per-custodian attribution returned on every record, and non-OGL sources are deliberately left out to keep commercial reuse clean.

What's included

Everything in the box

Four registers, one schema

Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, NatureScot and DAERA reconciled into one model, with one stable id per site.

Point, radius and polygon query

Find Ramsar sites by point, radius, bounding box or polygon, or fetch a single site by its stable id.

Clean nation field

We read each nation's own custodian layer rather than the UK-wide JNCC consolidated layer, so every record's nation traces to the authority that designated it.

EPSG:4326 geometry

Every site carries valid WGS84 geometry, reprojected server-side from British National Grid and the Irish Grid.

Welsh site names

Welsh sites return a name_cy value where the source provides a Welsh name.

OGL provenance

Open Government Licence v3.0 throughout, with per-custodian attribution returned on every record.

Data fields

What each record carries

schema14 fields

reference: string// The custodian's own register reference for the site.

nation: enum// The UK nation that designated the site: ENG, SCO, WAL or NIR.

source: string// The statutory nature conservation body that holds the record.

name: string// The official name of the Ramsar site.

name_cy: string// The Welsh-language name, where the source provides one.

designation_type: enum// The designation class. Always ramsar_site in this product.

category: string// The designation category as published by the custodian.

designated_date: date// The date the site was designated under the Ramsar Convention.

date_precision: enum// How precise designated_date is: day, month, year or none.

local_authority: string// The local authority area the site falls within.

area_hectares: float// The designated area of the site in hectares.

centroid: object// Representative point in EPSG:4326 with lat and lng.

licence: string// The licence the record is served under.

attribution: string// The attribution string for the custodian, returned on every record.

Sample response

Straight from the API

response.jsonapplication/json

{
  "id": "design.conservation.ENG.ramsar_site.UK11069",
  "reference": "UK11069",
  "nation": "ENG",
  "source": "Natural England",
  "name": "The Wash",
  "name_cy": null,
  "designation_type": "ramsar_site",
  "category": "Wetland of International Importance",
  "designated_date": "1988-10-13",
  "amended_date": null,
  "date_precision": "day",
  "local_authority": "King's Lynn and West Norfolk",
  "area_hectares": 62045.27,
  "source_url": "https://designatedsites.naturalengland.org.uk/SiteDetail.aspx?SiteCode=UK11069",
  "centroid": {
    "lat": 52.9389,
    "lng": 0.3056
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "attribution": "Contains Natural England data, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."
}

Use cases

What people build with it

Site due diligence

Query a point or boundary and see whether it sits inside or near a Ramsar wetland before you commit capital. Each hit returns the site name, area and designating authority.

Developers

Planning constraint checks

Ramsar sites carry European-equivalent protection in national planning policy. Screen applications and site allocations against one national layer rather than four separate registers.

Planners

Environmental underwriting

Identify protected wetland exposure around a risk. Ramsar designations often coincide with flood plains and coastal flats that matter to property and liability cover.

Insurers

Biodiversity and ESG screening

Flag international wetland designations across a portfolio for biodiversity and ESG reporting, with a stable id per site and clean OGL provenance.

Investors