This repository contains vocabularies - controlled lists of terms - managed by the Open Geospatial Consortium's Geosemantics Domain Working Group.
These vocabularies here are produced by OGC Standards Working Groups that are overseen by the Geosemantics DWG, such as the GeoSPARQL SWG and the CRS SWG. Once they cease to exist, management of the vocabularies is taken over by the Geosemantics DWG.
The vocabularies within this repository are stored in the vocabs/ folder within the resources/ folder. The resources/ folder also stores a manifest, a machine-readable listing of all content, a catalogue, a machine-readable file that helps present the content for human readability, and labels for background elements within the vocabularies data that don’t already have human-readable labels.
Each vocab is presented in its own file according to the Vocabulary Model.
The vocabularies in this repository are formulated according to a profile of SKOS. SKOS is the W3C's general-purpose defined-term data model and the VocPub profile of it used here sets requirements for the structure of such vocabularies and the kinds of metadata expected to be present within them.
Additionally, some of these vocabs have specialised content beyond simple concepts, as per SKOS. For example, the GeoSPARQL 1.1 Functions vocabulary (resources/vocabs/geosparql-swg/functions.ttl) additionally types each concept within it as a SPARQL Service Description "Function" with defined input parameters and return values.
We refer to vocabularies that have SKOS + other data model content as "SKOS+".
The content of these vocabularies are managed through workflows of actions based on the Git version control system used by GitHub - this website - and many others. Once vocabulary content is updated, it is published on the OGC’s RAINBOW which is the OGC reference data management system. Publication is automated using the Prez Manifest tool.
The Prez Manifest tool, "pm", can be used to validate any altered resource content before finalising change requests (Pull Requests). Using pm for this will prevent structurally/technically invalid additions.
pm can be installed locally, following these instructions, and then run from within this repository’s resources/ folder like this:
pm validate manifest.ttl
As configured in the manifest file, pm will validate all vocabs using the OGC’s version of the VocPub validator which is stored within the file vocpub-ogc.ttl.
As noted in the Vocabulary Model, a profile of SKOS called VocPub used for vocabulary validation has been specialised by the OGC for its use. This validator requires basic structural elements and simple metadata be present in SKOS vocabs, with a focus on ensuring catalogue-style metadata is present to allow large numbers of vocabs to be used effectively together.
|
Note
|
OGC VocPub is currently a work in progress. It started as just a clone of the standard VocPub profile in September 2025, but is being evolved to cater for OGC’s particular needs, such as a requirement for specialised classification of the vocabs. Currently, the |
Governance of these vocabularies is undertaken according to the ISO’s Geographic information — Procedures for item registration with the Geosemantics DWG acting as the Control Body that approves or rejects all changes.
See the Contributing Procedures below for information on how to engage with these processes.
The content of the vocabularies in this repository are open to different forms of collaboration, depending on how they were created. If you are unsure about how to contribute to them, please create an Issue in this repository’s Issue Tracker and just ask!
You can also directly contact either the Geosemantics DWG - see above - or the individual contributors to the vocabularies via this repository’s list og changes.
The procedures to managed contributions to these vocabularies are not in place as of mid-September, 2025, but will be soon. When they are, they will follow Geographic information — Procedures for item registration and will, in overview, allow for:
-
authorised contributors (to be determined) to propose changes/additions to vocabularies
-
the Control Body - Geosemantics DWG - to approve/reject changes or delegate
-
vocabulary and vocabulary item statuses to be seen and item lifecycles tracked
Currently, if you wish to contribute to these vocabularies, please contact the managers, as per the Contact section below.
The content of this repository - software and vocabulary data - is licensed for use using the Apache License, Version 2.0, a copy of the deed of which is contained within the LICENSE file in this repository.
Additionally, a machine-readable version of the Apache 2.0 license is provided, formulated according to the W3C’s Open Data Rights Language as RDF data in the turtle format, in the file license.ttl in this repository.
To be in contact with the Geosemantics Domain Working Group that manages this repository and its contents, please see:
Geosemantics Domain Working Group
OGC’s List of Domain Working Groups
https://www.ogc.org/domain-working-groups/