Longhurst code refers to a set of geospatial four-letter

geocode A geocode is a code that represents a geographic entity (location or object). It is a unique identifier of the entity, to distinguish it from others in a finite set of geographic entities. In general the ''geocode'' is a human-readable and ...

s for referencing geographic regions in

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...

. The set of 56 geocodes represent biogeochemical provinces that partition the pelagic environment. It is assumed that each province represents a unique set of environmental conditions. They are named after

Alan R. Longhurst Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Turkish surname *Alan (given name), an English given name **List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' *Al ...

, the author of "Ecological Geography of the Sea", the textbook in which these codes are defined.Ecological Geography of the Sea (), Academic Press, 2007 These codes have also been used in bioinformatic databases such as IMG to represent sample origins for sequenced microbial genomes, as a supplement to latitude and longitude coordinate metrics.

References

{{Reflist Geocodes Oceanographical terminology