Most bird species are quite widespread and have large ranges. However, over 2,500 are restricted to an area smaller than 50,000 km², and they are said to be endemic to it. BirdLife has identified regions of the world where the distributions of two or more of these restricted-range species overlap to form Endemic Bird Areas.

EBAs contain nearly all of the world's restricted-range bird species – only 7% of restricted-range species do not overlap with other such species and therefore do not occur in EBAs. The EBAs also support many of the world's more widespread bird species. Half of all restricted-range species are globally threatened or near-threatened and the other half remain forever vulnerable to the loss or degradation of habitat owing to the small size of their ranges. The majority of EBAs are also important for the conservation of restricted-range species from other animal and plant groups. For example, there is an overlap of 70% between the location of EBAs and areas which are similarly important for endemic plants globally. The unique landscapes where these species occur, amounting to just 4.5% of the earth's land surface, are high priorities for broad-scale ecosystem conservation.

The natural habitat in most EBAs (83%) is forest, especially tropical lowland forest and moist montane forest. Altogether, remaining suitable habitat within the EBAs now covers only 7,300,000 km², a small proportion of the Earth's land area. Geographically, EBAs are often islands or mountain ranges, and they vary considerably in size, from a few square kilometres to more than 100,000 km², and in the numbers of restricted-range species that they support (from 2 to 80). EBAs are found around the world, but most (77%) of them are located in the tropics and subtropics.

Search for an EBA

An Endemic Bird Area (EBA) is defined as an area which encompasses the overlapping breeding ranges of restricted-range species, such that the complete ranges of two or more restricted-range species are entirely included within the boundary of the EBA. This does not necessarily mean that the complete ranges of all of an EBA's restricted-range species are entirely included within the boundary of that single EBA, as some species may be shared between EBAs.

Restricted-range species are defined as all landbirds that have had, throughout historical times (since ornithological recording began after 1800), a total global breeding range estimated at below 50,000km². Species with historical ranges estimated to be above this threshold, but which have been reduced to below 50,000km² by habitat loss or other pressures, are not covered as EBAs should represent natural areas of endemism for birds. In the identification of the current list of EBAs, restricted-range landbirds that have become extinct since 1800 were included to help identify areas of high concentrations of endemic species.

For full details of the methodologies used, please see:
Stattersfield, A.J., Crosby, M.J., Long, A.J. and Wege, D.C. (1998) Endemic Bird Areas of the World. Priorities for biodiversity conservation. BirdLife Conservation Series 7. Cambridge: BirdLife International.

New information on bird range expansion and contraction becomes available regularly, and the EBA inventory will be updated in the future.