Mapping Asia Plants (MAP) provides a database and standardized workflow for mapping Asia plant species, which makes comprehensive basic information and interdisciplinary data mining for plant diversity conservation and research available. MAP aims to collect, integrate Asia plant diversity resources and to develop a platform of Asia plant diversity.

From the distribution of online data resources of global biodiversity, the plant information available in Asia is still limited and scattered. The plant distribution data in Asia accounts for less than 2% in GBIF. Till now, there is no biodiversity database infrastructure at a continental scale in Asia. Although there are certain independent efforts of biodiversity database development in China Mainland and China Taiwan, India, Japan and Korea, there is no complete biodiversity database in most Asian countries, which has serious impacts on biodiversity research and protection at a regional scale in Asia. Thus, Mapping Asia Plants (MAP) was initiated at the meeting of ABCDNet (www.abcdn.org) working group in November 2015, and was funded by Bureau of International Cooperation, Alliance of International Science Organizations (ANSO) and Southeast Asia Biodiversity Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

MAP operates in six sub-regions including Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Northeast Asia etc. Currently, each sub-region has built species databases (See table below). At Asia scale, vascular plants species database at genus level. Based on MAP’s investigation, several articles on the progress of plant research in these areas were published in Global Ecology and Conservation. These articles state the history, status and existing problems of vascular plant biodiversity research in Asia countries, and also list out the latest important resources. They provide important information for those who are interested in vascular plant diversity research in these regions and lay an important foundation for the establishment of a database of vascular plant diversity in Asia based on more accurate and up-to-date data.