JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)

Overview

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a lightweight, text-based format for storing and exchanging data, commonly used in web applications and GIS for representing structured information. JSON is language-independent and human-readable while being easy for machines to parse.

Key Concepts

Object is an unordered collection of key-value pairs enclosed in braces {}. Array is an ordered list of values enclosed in brackets []. Value can be a string, number, boolean, null, object, or array. Key is a string identifying a value in an object.

Syntax

{
  "name": "Example",
  "count": 42,
  "active": true,
  "items": ["a", "b", "c"],
  "metadata": {
    "created": "2025-01-01"
  }
}

GIS Extensions

• GeoJSON - JSON with geometry support
• TopoJSON - Topology-aware JSON encoding
• JSON-LD - Linked data in JSON

Appendix

Created: 2025-12-13 | Modified: 2025-12-13

See Also

• GeoJSON
• YAML Ain’t Markup Language (YAML)

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