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Context

The OGC API family of standards are being developed to make it easy for anyone to provide geospatial data to the web. These standards build upon the legacy of the OGC Web Service standards (WMS, WFS, WCS, WPS, etc.), but define resource-centric APIs that take advantage of modern web development practices. This web page provides information on these standards in a consolidated location.

These standards are being constructed as "building blocks" that can be used to assemble novel APIs for web access to geospatial content. The building blocks are defined not only by the requirements of the specific standards, but also through interoperability prototyping and testing in OGC's Innovation Program.
To learn more about using the OGC APIs please view our guidelines here.

The OGC API Roadmap highlights the current and planned standards efforts as well as related extensions to those standards and Innovation Program and other projects influencing and refining the process of standardization.

For more information on the OGC API standards, please contact us using the form below.

To find out more about the OGC please visit our public site. OGC Logo

What's New

OGC API standards in the news

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OGC Membership approves the OGC API – Processes – Part 1: Core specification as official OGC Standard

The OGC API - Processes Standard provides a means to build simple-to-understand Web APIs through which complex computational tasks - geoprocessing or otherwise - can be executed. The standard allows processes designed by geospatial experts to be integrated into workflows and applications, unlocking the value of data and making it accessible to non-experts.


More Info

API Prospectus
OGC APIs prospectus available

Are you interested in supporting OGC APIs, or would like to learn more about them? Be a part of OGC's evolution of standards. Download our prospectus now.

Next Code Sprint scheduled for November 29 to December 1, 2022

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) invites software developers to the November 2022 OGC API Code Sprint – The Web Mapping Code Sprint, to be held from November 29th to December 1st 2022. The code sprint will focus on OGC API – Maps, Tiles, Styles, and Symbology. Participation in the code sprint is free.


For more information visit the Code Sprint website.


APIs for the Web

Features

Approved Standard

OGC API - Features - Part 1: Core and Part 2: Coordinate Reference Systems by Reference are both publicly available.

More InfoGitHub repo
Common

OGC API - Common provides those elements shared by most or all of the OGC API standards to ensure consistency across the family. The candidate standard will soon be released for public review.

More InfoGitHub repo
EDR

Approved Standard

Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR) API provides a family of lightweight interfaces to access Environmental Data resources. Each resource addressed by an EDR API maps to a defined query pattern.

More InfoGitHub repo
Records

OGC API - Records updates OGC’s Catalog Services for the Web by building on the simple access to content in OGC API - Features.

More InfoGitHub repo
Processes

Approved Standard

OGC API - Processes allows for processing tools to be called and combined from many sources and applied to data in other OGC API resources though a simple API.

More InfoGitHub repo
Coverages

OGC API - Coverages allows discovery, visualization and query of complex raster stacks and data cubes.

More InfoGitHub repo
Tiles

OGC API - Tiles provides extended functionality to other OGC API standards to deliver tiled data, such as Map Tiles.

More InfoGitHub repo
Styles

The OGC API - Styles defines a Web API that enables map servers, clients as well as visual style editors, to manage and fetch styles...

More InfoGitHub repo
Maps

OGC API - Maps offers a modern approach to the OGC Web Map Service (WMS) standard for provision map and raster content.

More InfoGitHub repo
DGGS

Enables applications to organise and access data arranged according to a Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS).

More InfoGitHub repo
Routes

Enables applications to request routes in a manner independent of the underlying routing data set, routing engine or algorithm.

More InfoGitHub repo
Photo by pepe nero on Unsplash
Joins

OGC API - Joins supports the joining of data, from multiple sources, with feature collections or directly with other input files.

More InfoGitHub repo
Photo by kimi lee on Unsplash
Moving Features

OGC API - Moving Features defines an API that provides access to data representing features that move as rigid bodies.

More InfoGitHub repo
Image by Brecht Corbeel on Unsplash
3D GeoVolumes

OGC API - 3D GeoVolumes facilitates efficient discovery of and access to 3D content in multiple formats based on a space-centric perspective.

More InfoGitHub repo

 

APIs for the IoT

Photo by kimi lee on Unsplash
SensorThings

The OGC SensorThings API provides an open, geospatial-enabled and unified way to interconnect Internet of Things (IoT) devices, data, and applications over the Web.

More InfoGitHub repo

 

Compliance Testing and Certification

The executable test suite for Parts 1 and 2 of the OGC API - Features Standard is now available.

The executable test suite for the OGC API - Environmental Data Retrieval Standard is now available in Beta.

More information about Compliance certification is on the OGC website.

Sprints

OGC continues to use special events, hackathons, and sprints to validate the OGC API draft candidate standards as those standards evolve. By including the broadest possible selection of stakeholders, OGC can be confident that when the standards are published, those standards have already withstood testing and suitability evaluation.

  • September 2022

    September 2022 Joint OGC and ISO/TC211 Code Sprint (Hybrid event)

    This code sprint took place from 14th to 16th of September at the Geovation Hub in London, UK. The code sprint covered OGC API Records, ISO 19115, JSON-FG, and STAC. Hybrid event.


    Registration closed (open)

  • November 2022

    The Web Mapping Code Sprint (Hybrid event)

    This code sprint will take place from 29th November to 1st December in Brussels, Belgium. The code sprint will cover OGC API Maps, OGC API Tiles, and OGC API Styles. Hybrid event.


    Registration here

OGC Web API guidelines

The OGC Architecture Board (OAB) considers architecture consistency and life cycle management of the OGC standards baseline. The OAB has developed OGC Web API Guidelines to be followed when building Web API standards. These guidelines are not mandatory or policy, rather their purpose is to assist standards developers to use common patterns and better align their efforts.

OGC API Videos

Click on a video below to begin viewing it.

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Getting Geospatial Data on the Web
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OGC APIs: The Building Blocks for Location
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OGC API Overview and Implementation
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OGC API update - presented to the ESIP - November 2020
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FOSS4G 2021 - OGC APIs: background, current state, what's next?
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Apidays LIVE interface 2021 - Spatially enabling Web APIs through OGC Standards By Gobe Hobona
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ApacheCon 2021 - OGC APIs: Web API Standards for Handling and Exchanging Location Data - Gobe Hobona, Scott Simmons

Playlists:

Related Blog Posts

View all OGCAPI related blog posts.

OGC’s WaterML 2.0 Quenches New Zealand’s Thirst for Information Integration
Bringing STAC into OGC

Since their beginning, the SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) specification and OGC API - Features have been evolving together and continually aligning. This post explains the relationship between STAC, OGC API - Features, and OGC itself.

Read blog
OGC’s WaterML 2.0 Quenches New Zealand’s Thirst for Information Integration
A New Look for the Portrayal of Geospatial Information

Together, the Open Portrayal Framework and the SymCore standard define a modern and modular approach to portrayal based on the intent to have many extensions from a common conceptual model and many encodings of those extensions.

Read blog
OGC’s WaterML 2.0 Quenches New Zealand’s Thirst for Information Integration
Swimming in Data: OGC’s WaterML 2.0 Quenches New Zealand’s Thirst for Information Integration

By exploiting one of their most precious resources — water — OGC standards helped Kiwis conquer one of their most vexing challenges: disparate data sources. Like so many nations, New Zealand is engaged in a contentious game of environmental tug-of-war.

Read blog
OGC API - Maps Virtual Code Sprint
Revolutionizing Location data through accessibility: The OGC APIs Maps Virtual Code Sprint

On July 28 and 29, 2020, OGC hosted a virtual sprint to advance the OGC API - Maps candidate standard, one of many APIs being rolled out by the organization to revolutionize how location information is accessed and shared across the industry.

Read blog
Building an Interoperable Routing Engine (Part 1)
Building an Interoperable Routing Engine (Parts 1 & 2)

The goal of the Open Routing API Pilot was to develop an API that allowed requests for routes from different users in an interoperable and standardized way via Web protocols.

Read blog
OGC API - Tiles and its refinement at the 2020 Sprint
OGC API - Tiles and its refinement at the 2020 Sprint

Further testing and refinement to the OGC API - Tiles candidate standard - the spiritual successor to one of OGC’s most popular standards, the Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) - has occurred during another successful OGC Sprint. The candidate standard is just one of several efforts forming OGC’s move towards modular, resource-oriented, OpenAPI-based standards.

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The OGC Environmental Data Retrieval API: simple access to big data
The OGC Environmental Data Retrieval API: simple access to big data

Another step towards the creation of the OGC Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR) API Standard has been completed: the successful testing of some of the API’s capabilities during the OGC Environmental Data Retrieval API Sprint.

Read blog
OPF Hands
Open Portrayal Framework

Sharing Styles and Updating Tiles for a New Generation of Maps

Read blog
OGC APIs blog
OGC APIs and the evolution of OGC standards
Read blog

Supporting Documents

OGC and other documents supporting OGC API efforts.

The OGC API standards rely heavily upon fundamental concepts expressed in OGC White Papers and research and testing performed in Innovation Program activities and documented in Engineering Reports. OGC members are also specifying best practices for the use of web APIs and often share that guidance. The documents below provide some background to OGC API efforts.

Joint OGC OSGeo ASF Code Sprint 2021 Summary Engineering Report OGC API – Common and OGC API – Features Sprint 2020: Summary Engineering Report OGC API – Maps Sprint 2020: Summary Engineering Report OGC Testbed-16: OpenAPI Engineering Report OGC Testbed-16: Data Centric Security Engineering Report OGC Testbed-16: OpenAPI Engineering Report OGC Testbed-16: DGGS and DGGS API Engineering Report OGC Testbed-16: Data Access and Processing Engineering Report OGC Testbed-16: Data Access and Processing API Engineering Report OGC Testbed-16: Machine Learning Training Data ER OGC Testbed-16: Aviation Engineering Report OGC Testbed-16: Earth Observation Application Packages with Jupyter Notebooks OGC Vector Tiles Pilot 2: Summary Engineering Report OGC Vector Tiles Pilot 2: Tile Set Metadata Engineering Report OGC Vector Tiles Pilot 2: Vector Tiles Filtering Language Engineering Report FGDC OGC Application Programming Interface Interoperability Assessment OGC API Prospectus Testbed-15 Styles API Engineering Report Testbed-15 Maps and Tiles API Engineering Report Testbed-15 Images and Changes Set API Engineering Report OGC Open Geospatial APIs - White Paper Joint OGC-W3C Spatial Data on the Web Best Practices OGC Testbed-14: Next Generation Web APIs - WFS 3.0 Engineering Report OGC Testbed-14 Next Generation APIs: Complex Feature Handling Engineering Report OGC Testbed-14: Application Package Engineering Report OGC Testbed-14: ADES & EMS Results and Best Practices Engineering Report OGC Testbed-14: Swath Coverage Engineering Report OGC Vector Tiles Pilot: WFS 3.0 Vector Tiles Extension Engineering Report Vector Tiles Pilot Extension Engineering Report API strategie voor de Nederlandse overheid (section in English)
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Innovation Program activities

The OGC Innovation Program provides a world-recognized process for users of geospatial technology to collaborate and share the advancement of technologies for future enterprise architectures.

If you have an idea for an initiative or simply have a question or comment, contact Ingo Simonis, Head of the OGC Innovation Program.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The following are frequently asked questions in relation to OGC API Standards.

  • Q: I would like to migrate from a Web Feature Service (WFS) to OGC API Standards. Which OGC API Standard should I implement?
    A: OGC API - Features
  • Q: I would like to migrate from a MetOcean Web Coverage Service (WCS) to OGC API Standards. Which OGC API Standard should I implement?
    A: OGC API - Environmental Data Retrieval
  • Q: I would like to migrate from a Web Processing Service (WPS) to OGC API Standards. Which OGC API Standard should I implement?
    A: OGC API - Processes
  • Q: I would like to migrate from a Sensor Observation Service (SOS) to OGC API Standards. Which OGC API Standard should I implement?
    A: OGC SensorThings API

Use of OpenAPI in legacy OGC standards

While the OGC API standards are being developed in concert around common core elements, some older OGC web service standards have been described using OpenAPI. Examples of these legacy enhancements are found below.

UK Hydrographic Office Web Map Service (WMS) for Electronic Navigational Charts Prototype OpenAPI definition for Web Map Tile Service (WMTS)

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