Geography Markup Language

.gml

Supported

GML (Geography Markup Language) is an XML-based geospatial data encoding standard defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). GML provides rich geospatial data modeling capabilities, supporting complex geometry types, topology, coordinate reference systems, and spatiotemporal data. GML is widely used in European and government sectors, often for national spatial data infrastructures (SDI).

Specifications

Standard: OGC

MIME: application/gml+xml, text/xml

Key Features

OGC international standard with rigorous specification
Supports complex geometries, topology, and spatiotemporal data
Extensible Application Schema for domain-specific customization

Advantages

Rigorous standard suitable for government and enterprise data exchange
Powerful data modeling for complex geographic concepts

Limitations

Complex format, large files, high parsing overhead
Limited interoperability between different GML application schemas
Limited web application support, not suitable for online maps

Common Use Cases

Data exchange for national spatial data infrastructures (SDI)
Geographic data publishing by government and mapping agencies

Related Tools

GML → GEOJSON