The Database of British and Irish Hills, abbreviated to DoBIH, was founded by Graham Jackson and Chris Crocker in 2001 with the intention of providing a comprehensive, up-to-date resource for British hillwalkers.

It has grown considerably in the ensuing years and is currently maintained by a team of eight. In 2009 we merged our database with Simon Edwardes’s, whose Hill Bagging website became the online version of the DoBIH. Integration was carried a stage further in November 2025 with the migration of the DoBIH web pages to this section of Hill Bagging. The database has also been used in academic and topographical research.

The main documentation is the Database Notes which also carries change registers recording changes to various lists over time.

We offer downloadable versions for the benefit of those who prefer to use the database offline, including the many web and app developers who take our data under a Creative Commons licence. There is a facility for transferring personal ascent records between the Access and Excel formats and Hill Bagging.

The DoBIH seeks to present the most accurate hill data available. Our survey team pioneered the use of differential GPS instruments and line surveying by automatic level and staff to obtain accurate measurements of height, drop and location. From the first releases in 2015 the team has made use of publicly available LIDAR data, performing almost 3,000 analyses to date. Nowadays, our main supplier of British survey data is Alan Dawson, and in Ireland, MountainViews with whom we have a data sharing agreement, but we continue to perform LIDAR analyses and make use of new mapping resources as they become available.

Chris Crocker –  Contact Chris if you have a question or comment