Overview
ISO 19104:2016 - Geographic information - Terminology defines requirements for creating, managing and publishing terminology used in the geospatial domain. The standard governs how concepts are selected and harmonized, how terminological entries are structured and drafted, and how multilingual and cultural adaptations are handled. It also specifies layout and formatting rules for rendered documents and the establishment and management of terminology registers. ISO 19104:2016 is intended for use in International Standards and Technical Specifications in geographic information.
Key Topics and Technical Requirements
- Selection and harmonization of concepts: requirements for choosing concepts, developing concept systems and ensuring consistent meaning across usages.
- Terminological entry content and drafting: required fields and drafting rules for entries, including preferred/admitted/deprecated terms, equivalent terms, abbreviations, symbols, definitions, examples, notes and sources.
- Cultural and linguistic adaptation: guidance for adapting terminology across languages and cultural contexts to preserve equivalence of meaning.
- Layout and formatting: presentation rules for terminological entries in rendered documents to ensure clear, uniform display.
- Terminology registers and schema: structure and conformance classes for registers, stakeholders’ roles, information packages (core and supplementary), and machine-readable schemas for simple and hierarchical multilingual registers.
- Conformance classes and testing: conformance model (terminological entry and register classes) and an abstract test suite to verify compliance.
- Annexes and examples: normative and informative annexes covering test suites, multilingual environments, entry formats and example glossaries.
Practical Applications and Who Uses ISO 19104
ISO 19104 is practical for anyone who needs consistent geospatial vocabulary across documents, systems and languages:
- Standards developers and ISO technical committees producing consistent definitions for GIS standards.
- Terminologists and translators creating multilingual glossaries and ensuring semantic equivalence.
- GIS data managers and metadata specialists who require harmonized term definitions for interoperability.
- Software vendors and implementers integrating controlled vocabularies or terminology registers into GIS applications and APIs.
- Registry owners and managers establishing and maintaining authoritative terminology registers.
Benefits include improved interoperability, reduced ambiguity in technical communication, and more reliable cross-language translations for geospatial concepts.
Related Standards
- ISO 19135-1 (registration of geospatial concepts) - applied in ISO 19104 for register management.
- ISO 10241-2 - referenced for cultural and linguistic adaptation practices.
- ISO/TC 211 is the responsible committee for geographic information/geomatics.
Keywords: ISO 19104, geographic information terminology, GIS terminology standard, terminology register, multilingual glossary, terminological entry.