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4. Geography Markup Language - GML

GML

Any communication process involves the presence of a sender, a recipient and a communication channel. To understand the message transmitted by a sender (through an individual or a computer system) the receiver needs to know the encoding mechanism, i.e. the  language used. Thus, in order to communicate, a common language is required. In digital geographic domain, the common language for communication is Geographic Markup Language.

Geography Markup Language (GML) is an open standard encoding geographic features and their (spatial and non-spatial) properties using the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) framework.  GML  is being specified by the OGC and was adopted as ISO Standards (ISO 19136:2007 ) in 20017. It is the basis of communication within geospatial community, by enabling a vendor-neutral exchange of spatial data. Each storage data format (e.g. shapefile, Oracle, PostGIS) can be converted to GML and then published online via web services. Uses of GML: interoperable exchange of geographic data; common format for transferring data between different GIS, Data storage.

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