The United Nations Law of the Sea (LOS) Convention includes provisions given in Article 76 for establishing the outer limits of a coastal state's legal continental shelf and for denoting the seaward extent of rights over natural resources. A preliminary determination of these limits has been done for the U.S. east coast. The methodology used is a viable and cost‐effective approach that appears ideally suited to coastal states having large amounts of interpreted bathymetric and geophysical data pertaining to their continental shelves. The determinations are reproducible, use unbiased published data, and conform to the intent of the LOS Convention.