The CoRE (Contractions or Range Expansions) database contains a library of published literature and data on species range shifts in response to climate change. Through a systematic review of publications returned from searches on Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus, we selected primary research articles that documented or attempted to document species-level distribution shifts in animal or plant species in response to recent anthropogenic climate change. We extracted data in four broad categories: (i) basic study information (study duration, location, data quality and methodological factors); (ii) basic species information (scientific names and taxonomic groups); (iii) information on the observed range shifts (range dimension, occupancy or abundance shift, and range edge); and (iv) the description of the shift (range shift direction, magnitude of the shift, and whether it supported our hypotheses). We also took note of climate drivers mentioned and details on species vulnerability and adaptive capacity.