This polygon shapefile depicts kelp beds along the California coast, which are a critical habitat for many important sport and commercial species of invertebrates and fishes. Kelp is also harvested by commercial and sport concerns. Until now, kelp bed area figures used in harvest regulatory processes by the State of California have been based upon hardcopy maps created from 1989 aerial photography, displaying hand drawn delineated features of the kelp canopy. The Fall 1999 project digitally remeasured the 1989 kelp maps and established new digital methods to calculate the area of the 1999 kelp canopy based on aerial, color-infrared photographs. The objective was to create a baseline that could be used to assess the effects of current and future use of coastal kelp. File reindexed to match California Department of Fish and Wildlife administrative kelp bed boundaries modified by changes to California Code of Regulations, Title 14, Section 165, effective April 1, 2014. The State of California Fish and Game Commission established and mapped kelp bed boundaries for the purpose of administering kelp harvest leases and harvest regulations (Title 14, California Code of Regulations, Section 165.5). The purpose of this coverage is to provide an easy-to-use, state-wide GIS shapefile for graphic presentation. This dataset was not intended for use in determining linear or areal dimensions of kelp distribution or for areal comparison with other kelp datasets. These are public data. The Department of Fish and Wildlife must be credited with the collection, analysis and distribution of these data. This layer is presented in the WGS84 coordinate system for web display purposes. Downloadable data are provided in native coordinate system or projection.