What is NAVAREA?

The World-Wide Navigational Warning Service (IMO and IHO) divides the oceans into 21 NAVAREAs. Each has a coordinator who collects dangers to navigation and issues warnings for the open sea.

Levels of warnings

• NAVAREA warnings: for ocean passages, issued by the NAVAREA coordinator. Broadcast by satellite (Inmarsat SafetyNET and Iridium SafetyCast). Those that matter for a NAVTEX station's waters are also broadcast there, at least twice a day.
• Sub-area warnings: a NAVAREA can be divided into sub-areas with their own coordinator and numbered series. Only one exists today: the Baltic Sea, part of NAVAREA I, coordinated by Sweden (BALTIC SEA NAV WARN). Sub-areas for the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea were proposed but never set up.
• Coastal warnings: for the waters within reach of a NAVTEX station, issued by a national coordinator. These are the main content of NAVTEX.
• Local warnings: for harbours and inshore waters, issued by local authorities, for example on VHF. They are not broadcast on the international NAVTEX service.

Weather follows almost the same map: the WMO's METAREAs have the same numbers and largely the same boundaries as the NAVAREAs.

The 21 NAVAREAs

Zoomable map with stations and their range →