The Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) is the international collaboration that manages the deposition, processing and distribution of the PDB archive. The wwPDB's mission is to maintain a single archive of macromolecular structural data that are freely and publicly available to the global community. Its members [RCSB PDB (USA), PDBe (Europe), PDBj (Japan), and BMRB (USA)] host data‐deposition sites and mirror the PDB ftp archive. To support future developments in structural biology, the wwPDB partners are addressing organizational, scientific, and technical challenges. � 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 99: 218–222, 2013.