We study the world data on elastic electron-proton scattering in order to determine the proton charge rms-radius. After accounting for the Coulomb distortion and using a parameterization that allows to deal properly with the higher moments we find a radius of 0.895+/-0.018 fm, which is significantly larger than the radii used in the past. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.