Earth's Realms
Updated: Aug 18
Explore the Earth through its broadest ecological regions
Shanti Plants – The Earth Provides
Continents and oceans are not ecologically uniform. Vast regions share evolutionary histories, geographic barriers, climate patterns and communities of life.
A biogeographic realm is one of the broadest regions used to organise life on Earth. Realms help us understand why related ecosystems and species occur across large areas, and why distant places can have very different ecological histories.
The Earth’s Resource Map uses realms as the first layer of its ecological framework. They provide broad context before information is organised into biomes, bioregions, ecoregions and individual resource records.
Use this index to choose a terrestrial or marine realm and explore the records currently connected to it.
What This Index Covers
Terrestrial Realms
The terrestrial section uses eight broad biogeographic realms. These organise land-based ecosystems according to long-term patterns of evolution, geography and species distribution.
The eight terrestrial realms are:
Marine Realms
The marine section follows the Marine Ecoregions of the World framework. It divides coastal and continental-shelf waters into 12 realms, 62 provinces and 232 ecoregions.
These marine realms cover coastal and shelf waters rather than every part of the open or deep ocean.
The 12 marine realms are:
Terrestrial and marine realms are useful companion layers, but they come from different classification systems and should not be treated as identical ecological units.
Read First
Supporting Read First guides will be linked here as they are published. Until then, review the coverage, evidence and safety guidance below before using regional records for practical decisions.
Coverage and Evidence
The Earth's Resource Map is being built progressively.
A realm appearing in this index means that the geographic region is indexed. It does not mean that all knowledge about that region is complete, verified or suitable for practical use.
Coverage is shown openly using four levels:
Indexed — The region or resource is known to the system and can be connected to its identity, source and broad context. Details may still be incomplete.
Referenced — Traceable sources support some information, such as occurrence, description, ecology or possible uses. Practical guidance may still be incomplete.
Verified — Important stated claims have passed the required evidence, safety and conservation review for the context shown.
Localised and actionable — Verified information also includes the local context needed for practical guidance, such as occurrence, season, law, preparation or harvesting requirements, lookalikes, sustainability and regional review.
Evidence is assessed claim by claim. A reliable source supporting one fact does not automatically verify every statement about a species, resource or region.
Geographic boundaries are also tools for organising ecological information rather than hard barriers in nature. Species distributions, water systems, climate, migration and ecological relationships can cross mapped boundaries.
Never assume that advice verified in one realm automatically applies in another. Local laws, conservation status, culturally governed knowledge, environmental conditions, common names, lookalikes and safe practices can differ between places.
For identification, consumption, harvesting, handling or other higher-risk decisions, use the complete resource record, its evidence and safety information, and appropriate local or professional guidance. Never act solely from a visual match or an incomplete database record.
Where information is missing or uncertain, the Earth's Resource Map will show that gap rather than presenting incomplete knowledge as complete.
Last Reviewed
18 August 2026
This date records the review of this index page and its geographic framework. Individual realm, bioregion, ecoregion and resource records may have different evidence, publication and review dates.
Continue Exploring
References
Olson, D. M., Dinerstein, E., Wikramanayake, E. D., Burgess, N. D., Powell, G. V., Underwood, E. C., ... & Kassem, K. R. (2001). Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: A new map of life on Earth. BioScience, 51(11), 933-938. doi.org. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/51/11/933/227116
Spalding, M. D., Fox, H. E., Allen, G. R., Davidson, N., Ferdaña, Z. A., Finlayson, M. A. X., ... & Lourie, S. A. (2007). Marine ecoregions of the world: a bioregionalization of coastal and shelf areas. BioScience, 57(7), 573-583. doi.org. https://doi.org/10.1641/B570707
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