ISO 19168-1:2025 - Geographic information - Geospatial API for features - Part 1: Core
Overview
ISO 19168-1:2025 defines a minimal, interoperable profile for Web APIs that expose geographic "features" from datasets regardless of the underlying data store. The standard specifies the behaviour of discovery and query operations so clients can:
- Discover API capabilities, metadata and available data distributions (API landing page and API definition).
- Query and retrieve features using simple selection criteria supplied by the client.
This second edition (2025) focuses on a core requirements class and references common encodings and API definition tools to promote consistent, discoverable feature APIs.
Key technical topics and requirements
The standard covers practical, implementation-focused topics including:
- API discovery and definition - a standardized landing page and machine-readable API definition (role of OpenAPI) to enable automated client interrogation.
- Query operations - endpoints for feature collections and individual features with parameters for selection (e.g., bounding box (bbox), datetime and property filters).
- Encodings - requirements classes for common encodings such as GeoJSON, HTML, and GML (Simple Features Profiles) to ensure interoperable content formats.
- OpenAPI 3.0 support - guidance and requirements for providing an OpenAPI definition that represents the API’s capabilities.
- HTTP behaviour and web best practices - HTTP/1.1 status codes, use of HTTPS, link headers, caching, cross-origin request support (CORS), and handling unknown/invalid query parameters.
- Conformance and testability - declaration of conformance classes (Core, encoding classes, OpenAPI) and an abstract test suite to verify compliance.
- Internationalization and CRS - provisions for string internationalization and coordinate reference system handling.
- Security considerations - guidance on risks from multiple access routes/servers and path manipulation for HTTP methods.
Practical applications and who should use it
ISO 19168-1:2025 is intended for organizations and professionals building or consuming web feature APIs:
- GIS developers and API designers implementing interoperable feature services.
- National mapping agencies, environmental and urban data providers exposing geospatial features.
- Spatial data infrastructures (SDI) and data portals requiring machine-discoverable APIs.
- Software vendors and integrators building clients, SDKs, or automated tooling based on OpenAPI and GeoJSON/GML.
By following ISO 19168-1, implementers can create consistent, discoverable, and testable geospatial feature APIs that integrate across platforms and toolchains.
Related standards and technologies
- OpenAPI 3.0 (for API definitions)
- GeoJSON and GML (Geography Markup Language) (encodings)
- ISO series on geographic information and web services (context for interoperability)