The Global Lake and River Ice Phenology Database contains freeze and breakup dates and other ice cover descriptive data for 748 lakes and rivers distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The data set was compiled by the North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from data submitted by participants in the Lake Ice Analysis Group (LIAG). The database is searchable by country, map coordinates, lake or river name, and year of record. Output can be viewed in HTML or downloaded as a gzip or ASCII file.