The PROMICE (Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet) aerophotogrammetric map of Greenland ice masses is the first high resolution dataset documenting the mid-1980s areal extent of the Greenland Ice Sheet and all the local glaciers and ice caps. The total glacierized area excluding nunataks was 1 804 638 km<sup>2</sup> ± 2178 km<sup>2</sup>, of which 88 083 ± 1240 km<sup>2</sup> belonged to local glaciers and ice caps (GIC) substantially independent from the Greenland Ice Sheet. This new result of GIC glacierized area is higher than most previous estimates, 81% greater than Weng's (1995) measurements, but is in line with contemporary findings based on independent data sources. A comparison between our map and the recently released Rastner et al. (2012) inventory and GIMP (Greenland Ice Mapping Project) Ice-Cover Mask (Howat and Negrete, 2013) shows potential for change-assessment studies.