The World Stress Map (WSM) is a global compilation of information on the crustal present-day stress field. It is a collaborative project between academia and industry that aims to characterize the stress pattern and to understand the stress sources. It commenced in 1986 as a project of the International Lithosphere Program under the leadership of Mary-Lou Zoback. From 1995-2008 it was a project of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities headed first by Karl Fuchs and then by Friedemann Wenzel. Since 2009 the WSM is maintained at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences.

All stress information is analysed and compiled in a standardized format and quality-ranked for reliability and comparability on a global scale. The stress map displays A-C quality stress data records of the Earth’s crust from the WSM database release 2025 (doi:10.5880/WSM.2025.001). Further detailed information on the WSM quality ranking scheme 2025, guidelines for the borehole logging data, and software for stress map generation and the stress pattern analysis is available at www.world-stress-map.org.