The World Vector Shoreline dataset is a digital data file at a nominal scale of 1:250,000, containing worldwide coverage of shorelines and international boundaries. The World Vector Shoreline is a standard National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (formerly Defense Mapping Agency) product. The Pacific Disaster Center performed significant editing on the original dataset to correct numerous topology errors. The international boundaries were also removed, resulting in a dataset of world shorelines and country boundaries.

The main source material for the WVS was the DMA's Digital Landmass Blanking (DLMB) data which was derived primarily from the Joint Operations Graphics and coastal nautical charts produced by DMA. The DLMB data consists of a land/water flag file on a 3 by 3 arc-second interval grid. This raster data set was converted into vector form to create the WVS. For areas of the world not covered by the DLMB data (e.g. the Arctic and Antarctic), the shoreline was taken from the best available hard copy sources at a preferred scale of 1:250000. The WVS data are stored in chain-node format. Pacific Disaster Center processing: Data were downloaded in an ArcINFO Generate format from the NOAA/NGDC Coastline Extractor in 37 sections. The files were converted to ArcINFO line coverages using the GENERATE command and were appended to make a world-wide coverage. The data were reprojected from Geographic to Mercator with a central meridian of 150 degrees and the WGS 1984 Datum. Significant editing was performed on the original dataset to correct numerous topology errors. The line coverage was cleaned with a fuzzy tolerance of 30 meters and a dangle tolerance of 100 meters. Where dangling nodes occurred, line segments were connected in order to build polygons. The lines were connected only to fix topology errors and may not be geographically correct. The international boundaries were also removed, resulting in a dataset of world shorelines and country boundaries