The Arctic may be considered a single region, but it can be defined and delineated in many different ways. This theme introduces the different ways the Arctic can be and has been defined by different scholars and organizations, and the many ways that the 'Arctic boundary' can be drawn on the map.
Layers include environmental markers such as the treeline and 10' July Isotherm, as well as definitions of the region created by processes of the Arctic Council.

In order to establish the geographic limits of their work, the working groups of the Arctic Council began to create boundary lines on the circumpolar map that were relevant for their particular mandate. For example, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), which predates the Arctic Council, created its 'AMAP area' as the territory where it would carry out environmental monitoring under the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy.

From the AMAP site:

Other Arctic Council working groups such as Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) and Emergency, Prevention, Preparedness and Response (EPPR), and the Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR) developed their own boundaries or adapted the AMAP boundary. While it may seem odd to have several different boundaries within even the Arctic Council, the different scopes of each working group makes it difficult to have a 'one-size-fits-all' solution. For example, the CAFF boundary largely follows the treeline in order to include the ecosystems that are the focus of its activities. Similarly, the Arctic Human Development Report needed to be based largely on northern political units, as that is how the majority of socio-economic data and information on northern socieities is organized.

From the AHDR:

You can explore the differences and commonalities between these boundaries in the map layers below.

Source data provided by the Arctic Council and GRID-Arendal.