We provide a recursive classification of meander graphs, showing that each meander is identified by a unique sequence of fundamental graph theoretic moves. This sequence is called the meander’s signature and can be used to construct arbitrarily large sets of meanders, Frobenius or otherwise, of any size and configuration. In certain special cases, the signature is used to produce an explicit formula for the index of seaweed Lie subalgebra of sl(n) in terms of elementary functions.