River plumes are the regions where the most intense river-sea-land interaction occurs, and they are characterized by complex material transport and biogeochemical processes. However, due to their highly dynamic nature, global river plume areas have not yet been determined for use in synthetic studies of global oceanography. Based on global climatological monthly averaged salinity data from the NOAA World Ocean Atlas 2009 (WOA09), and monthly averaged salinity contour maps of the East and South China Seas from the Chinese Marine Atlas, we extract the monthly plume areas of major global rivers using a geographic information system (GIS) technique. Only areas with salinities that are three salinity units lower than the average salinity in each ocean are counted. This conservative estimate shows that the minimum and maximum monthly values of the total plume area of the world’s 19 largest rivers are 1.72 × 10 6 km 2 in May and 5.38 × 10 6 km 2 in August. The annual mean area of these river plumes (3.72 × 10 6 km 2 ) takes up approximately 14.2% of the total continental shelves area worldwide (26.15 × 10 6 km 2 ). This paper also presents river plume areas for different oceans and latitude zones, and analyzes seasonal variations of the plume areas and their relationships with river discharge. These statistics describing the major global river plume areas can now provide the basic data for the various flux calculations in the marginal seas, and therefore will be of useful for many oceanographic studies. River plumes are the regions where the most intense river-sea-land interaction occurs, and they are characterized by complex material transport and biogeochemical processes. However, due to their highly dynamic nature, global river plume areas have not yet been determined for use in synthetic studies of global oceanography. Based on global climatological monthly averaged salinity data from the NOAA World Ocean Atlas 2009 (WOA09), and monthly averaged salinity contour maps of the East and South China Seas from the Chinese Marine Atlas, we extract the monthly plume areas of major global rivers using a geographic information system (GIS) technique. Only areas with salinities that are three salinity units lower than the average salinity in each ocean are counted. This conservative estimate shows that the minimum and maximum monthly values ​​of the total plume area of the world’s 19 largest rivers are 1.72 × 10 6 km 2 in May and 5.38 × 10 6 km 2 in August. The annual mean area of ​​these rive This paper also presents river plume areas for different oceans and latitude zones, and analyzes seasonal variations of (3.72 × 10 6 km 2) take up approximately 14.2% of the total continental shelves area worldwide (26.15 × 10 6 km 2) the plume areas and their relationships with river discharge. These statistics describing the major global river plume areas can now provide the basic data for the various flux calculations in the marginal seas, and therefore will be be useful for many oceanographic studies.