The inventory began under the CORINE programme. It is now maintained for EEA by the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity and is annually updated through Eionet.

EEA provides the European inventory of nationally designated areas to the World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) and to Eurostat. The nationally designated areas data can also be queried online in the European Nature Information System (EUNIS). The inventory is the national module of the Common Database on Designated Areas (CDDA v15) which also includes information on areas designated under European Community legislation and areas designated under international conventions.

This information is from the European Common Database on Designated Areas established and managed collaboratively by the European Environment Agency, the UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the Council of Europe, based on data provided by national sources.

Geographical coverage GIS vector data: Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey. EEA does not have permission to distribute some or all sites reported by Austria, Estonia, Finland, Great Britain, Greece and the Netherlands. Copyright has to be mentioned for Estonia, Germany and Slovenia.