List - GIS Standards Organizations

Overview

Curated collection of standards development organizations (SDOs) responsible for geospatial data standards, coordinate reference systems, and interoperability specifications.

International Standards Bodies

Organization	Acronym	Description	Links
Open Geospatial Consortium	OGC	Develops open geospatial standards (WMS, WFS, GeoJSON, etc.)	Website - Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)
ISO Technical Committee 211	ISO/TC 211	ISO standards for geographic information	Website
International Hydrographic Organization	IHO	Maritime and navigation standards (S-57, S-100)	Website
European Petroleum Survey Group	EPSG	Coordinate reference system registry	Registry - European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG)

US Federal Organizations

Organization	Acronym	Description	Links
Federal Geographic Data Committee	FGDC	US federal geospatial coordination	Website - Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
US Geological Survey	USGS	National mapping and geospatial data	Website - United States Geological Survey (USGS)
US Census Bureau	Census	TIGER/Line, demographic boundaries	Website
National Geodetic Survey	NGS	Geodetic control and datums	Website

Industry & Domain-Specific

Organization	Acronym	Description	Links
Real Estate Standards Organization	RESO	Real estate data standards	Website - Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO)
Esri	ESRI	De facto standards (Shapefile, File GDB)	Website - Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)
Cloud Native Geospatial Foundation	CNGF	Cloud-optimized formats (COG, STAC, GeoParquet)	Website
ASPRS	ASPRS	LiDAR standards (LAS format)	Website

Web Standards

Organization	Acronym	Description	Links
World Wide Web Consortium	W3C	Web standards including spatial data on the web	Website
IETF	IETF	GeoJSON RFC 7946	RFC 7946

OGC Standards Reference

Modern OGC APIs

Standard	Description	Docs
OGC API - Common	Foundation for OGC APIs	Spec
OGC API - Features	Vector feature access (replaces WFS)	Spec
OGC API - Tiles	Map tile access (replaces WMTS)	Spec
OGC API - Maps	Map image access	Spec
OGC API - Processes	Processing services (replaces WPS)	Spec
OGC API - Records	Catalog services (replaces CSW)	Spec
OGC API - EDR	Environmental data retrieval	Spec

Legacy OGC Web Services

Standard	Acronym	Description	Links
Web Map Service	WMS	Georeferenced map images	Web Map Service (WMS)
Web Feature Service	WFS	Vector feature access	Web Feature Service (WFS)
Web Coverage Service	WCS	Raster coverage access	Spec
Web Map Tile Service	WMTS	Cached tile access	Spec
Web Processing Service	WPS	Geoprocessing services	Spec
Catalogue Service for Web	CSW	Metadata discovery	Spec

OGC Data Formats

Standard	Description	Links
GeoPackage	SQLite-based vector/raster container	Spec
GeoJSON	JSON geometry encoding	RFC 7946
GML	Geography Markup Language (XML)	Spec
KML	Keyhole Markup Language (Google Earth)	Spec
Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF	COG for cloud access	Spec
STAC	SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog	Spec - SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC)
Simple Features	Geometry types specification	Spec

Notes

OGC APIs are the modern replacement for legacy WxS services
EPSG codes are the standard way to identify coordinate reference systems
See Guide - Geospatial File Format Selection for format recommendations

Appendix

Created: 2024-12-22 | Modified: 2024-12-22

See Also

Backlinks

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