The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) is charged with the task of developing, refining, and maintaining a universal virus taxonomy.
The ICTV web site provides access to the current taxonomy database in online and downloadable formats, and maintains a complete history of virus taxa back to the first release in 1971. The ICTV has also published the ICTV Report on Virus Taxonomy starting in 1971. This Report provides a comprehensive description of all virus taxa covering virus structure, genome structure, biology and phylogenetics.