This product resulted from merging four regional datasets containing BOEM Planning Area outlines. The use of these Planning Areas makes it easier to refer to Official Protraction Diagrams (OPD) and individual blocks within a region. The Submerged Lands Act (SLA) boundary, along with the Continental Shelf Boundary (CSB), the Limit of Protraction were used to complete the polygons for the Planning Areas. Because GIS projection and topology functions can change or generalize coordinates, these GIS files are considered to be approximate and are NOT an OFFICIAL record for the exact block coordinates or areas. The Official Protraction Diagrams (OPDs) and Supplemental Official OCS Block Diagrams (SOBDs) serve as the legal definition for BOEM offshore boundary coordinates and area descriptions. If any discrepancies are found between these shapefiles and the OPDs and SOBDs, it is the OPD and SOBD diagrams which take precedence. The original datasets were developed in UTM. Here they are projected in WGS_1984_World_Mercator. As a result, any area values computed from this dataset may differ from the official BOEM areas.