Construction of wave energy resource dataset (WERD) is the key base for achieving rational and efficient utilization of wave energy, which is beneficial for easing the energy crisis and protecting the fragile marine ecological environment. However, the research on the WERD construction is scarce. Even more, the existing WERD mainly contains the traditional focus of wave energy (climatic feature). This study proposed to create a global oceanic WERD, with the Maritime Silk Road as a case study, which comprehensively includes not only the traditional focus of wave energy, but also adds seven new modules: short-term forecast, climatic variation of wave energy, long-term projection of wave energy, wave energy classification, characteristics of swell energy, wave climate characteristics, as well as detailed study of wave energy of key nodes, in hope of providing scientific reference, data service and decision support for the site selection, daily operation and long term plan of wave energy development. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.