ISO

ISO is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies established in 1947. The mission of ISO is to promote the development of standardization and related activities in the world to facilitate the international exchange of goods and services, and to develop cooperation in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological and economic activity.

The International Organization for Standardization’s Technical Committee 211 on Geographic Information and Geomatics (ISO/TC 211) is responsible for the ISO geographic information series of standards. ISO/TC 211 provides standards for:

  • Geospatial data, including imagery and information;
  • Geospatial data administration and information management; and
  • Geospatial services, including location-based services.
These standards specify the methods, tools and services for data management (including definition and description), acquisition, processing, analyzing, accessing, presenting and transferring geospatial data in digital or electronic form between different users, systems and locations.

The "first generation" GIS standards being created within ISO/TC 211 are, for the most part, written at an abstract specification level. ISO/TC 211 standards aim to communicate, in ordinary language, the objects, relationships, behaviors, and attributes associated with specific components. In other words, these are broad stroke standards, not "this is how we are going to it" standards.

You can learn more about ISO by visiting http://www.iso.ch; for information about ISO/TC 211, go to http://www.isotc211.org.