The Canadian Geographical Name Service Server is a web feature service (WFS) with all input requests and output conforming to the WFS specifications. The web feature service includes the place name data, which is used to drive some of the CGDI gazetteer services, such as the Canadian Geographical Name Service Place Name Gazetteer.

To implement the Canadian Geographical Name Service Server in your application, you will need to consider the following elements:

1. The service type is WFS Gazetteer, Web Map Server.
   
   
2. The output encoding is OGC WFS or WMS.
   
   
3. To learn more about the capabilities of the Canadian Geographical Name Service Server click Canadian Geographical Name Service Server capabilities.
   
   
4. The base URL for the Canadian Geographical Name Service Server is: http://cgns.nrcan.gc.ca/wfs/cubeserv.cgi?datastore=cgns

There is also a web map service (WMS) instance of the place name service, with scale-dependent location names available as layers.

1. To learn more about the capabilities of the Canadian Geographical Name Service, click Canadian Geographical Name Service capabilities.
   
   
2. The base URL is http://cgns.nrcan.gc.ca/wms/cubeserv.cgi
   
   
3. For more information about how to connect your application directly to the Canadian Geographical Name Service, click Connect your application.

Standards in action

Marie-Louise has developed a mapping application and would like the users to be able to zoom in on a specific area by giving it a place name. She can use the Canadian Geographical Name Service Server (CGNSS) to do so. The user enters a place name in a text box and clicks Find Place. The application queries the CGNSS and gets the location of the place name in the response. The mapping application can then zoom in on the coordinates provided by the CGNSS.