Geo is a
microformat
Microformats (μF) are predefined HTML markup (like HTML classes) created to serve as descriptive and consistent metadata about elements, designating them as representing a certain type of data (such as contact information, geographic coor ...
used for marking up
geographical coordinates (
latitude
In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from −90° at t ...
and
longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lett ...
) in
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
(or
XHTML
Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages which mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated.
While HTML, pr ...
).
Coordinates are expected in
angular units of
degrees and
geodetic datum
A geodetic datum or geodetic system (also: geodetic reference datum, geodetic reference system, or geodetic reference frame, or terrestrial reference frame) is a global datum reference or reference frame for unambiguously representing the positi ...
WGS84.
Although termed a "draft" specification, the format is a
''de facto'' standard, stable and in widespread use;
not least as a sub-set of the published
hCalendar
hCalendar (short for ''HTML iCalendar'') is a microformat standard for displaying a semantic (X)HTML representation of iCalendar-format calendar information about an event, on web pages, using HTML classes and ''rel'' attributes.
It allows pa ...
and
hCard
hCard is a microformat for publishing the contact details (which might be no more than the name) of people, companies, organizations, and places, in HTML, Atom, RSS, or arbitrary XML. The hCard microformat does this using a 1:1 representation of v ...
microformat specifications, neither of which is still a draft.
Use of Geo allows parsing tools (for example other websites, or
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...
's
Operator extension) to extract the locations, and display them using some other website or
web mapping
Web mapping or an online mapping is the process of using, creating, and distributing maps on the World Wide Web (the Web), usually through the use of Web GIS, Web geographic information systems (Web GIS). A web map or an online map is both served ...
tool, or to load them into a
GPS device, index or aggregate them, or convert them into an alternative format.
Usage
*If latitude is present, so must be longitude, and vice versa.
*The same number of decimal places should be used in each value, including trailing zeroes.
[''Must'' and ''should'' are used per the ]IETF
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet standard, Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster ...
document
The Geo microformat is applied using three
HTML classes. For example, the marked-up text:
Belvide: 52.686; -2.193
becomes:
Belvide: 52.686; -2.193
by adding the class-attribute values "geo", "latitude" and "longitude".
This will display
Belvide: 52.686; -2.193
and a geo microformat for that location,
Belvide Reservoir, which will be detected, on this page, by microformat parsing tools.
hCard
Each Geo microformat may be wrapped in an
hCard
hCard is a microformat for publishing the contact details (which might be no more than the name) of people, companies, organizations, and places, in HTML, Atom, RSS, or arbitrary XML. The hCard microformat does this using a 1:1 representation of v ...
microformat, allowing for the inclusion of personal, organisational or venue names, postal addresses, telephone contacts,
URL
A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web, is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identi ...
s, pictures, etc.
Extensions
There are three proposals, none mutually-exclusive, to extend the geo microformat:
* geo-extension - for representing coordinates on other planets, moons etc., and with non-WGS84 schema
* geo-elevation - for representing altitude
* geo-waypoint - for representing routes and boundaries, using waypoints
Users
Organisations and websites using Geo include:
*
Flickr
Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...
- on over three million photo pages
*
Geograph
Geograph Britain and Ireland is a Web application, web-based project, begun in March 2005, to create a freely accessible archive of geographically located photographs of Great Britain and Ireland. Photographs in the Geograph collection are cho ...
- on over one million photo pages
*
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
*
Multimap
In computer science, a multimap (sometimes also multihash, multidict or multidictionary) is a generalization of a map or associative array abstract data type in which more than one value may be associated with and returned for a given key. Both ...
- all map pages
*
OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap (abbreviated OSM) is a free, Open Database License, open geographic database, map database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveying, surveys, trace from Ae ...
- wiki pages about places, GPS traces and diary entries
*Wikipedia - embedded in geo templates of map-link pages
**
German Wikipedia - ditto
**
Dutch Wikipedia - ditto
**
Swedish Wikipedia
The Swedish Wikipedia () is the Swedish language, Swedish-language edition of Wikipedia, started in 2001. A free content online encyclopedia, it is the largest reference work in Swedish history, while consistently ranked as the most visited or on ...
- ditto
**
Italian Wikipedia
The Italian Wikipedia () is the Italian language, Italian-language edition of Wikipedia. This edition was created on 10 May 2001, and first edited on 11 June 2001. As of , it has articles and more than registered accounts. It is the -largest W ...
*
Wikivoyage
Wikivoyage is a free web-based travel guide for travel destinations and travel topics written by volunteer authors. It is a sister project of Wikipedia and supported and hosted by the same non-profit Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Wikivoyage has ...
Multiple organisations publishing hCard include a geo as part of that.
h-geo
An alternative to Geo, h-geo, has been proposed. This is applied using three
HTML classes. For example:
Belvide: 52.686; -2.193; 120
by adding the class-attribute values "h-geo", "p-latitude", "p-longitude", and "p-altitude".
See also
*
GeoSPARQL
GeoSPARQL is a model for representing and querying geospatial linked data for the Semantic Web. It is standardized by the Open Geospatial Consortium as OGC GeoSPARQL. The definition of a small ontology based on well-understood OGC standards is inte ...
,
Geographic Information System
A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and Geographic information system software, software that store, manage, Spatial analysis, analyze, edit, output, and Cartographic design, visualize Geographic data ...
(GIS) data for the W3C
Semantic Web
The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable.
To enable the encoding o ...
using the
Resource Description Framework
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a method to describe and exchange graph data. It was originally designed as a data model for metadata by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It provides a variety of syntax notations and formats, of whi ...
(RDF) and
SPARQL
SPARQL (pronounced ":wikt:sparkle, sparkle", a recursive acronym for SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language) is an RDF query language—that is, a Semantic Query, semantic query language for databases—able to retrieve and manipulate data sto ...
*
Geo URI specified in
*
ISO 6709
*
ICBM address, an older
geotagging
Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RgSSfeeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data ...
format
*
Schema.org, web standard schema.org/geo.
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geo (Microformat)
Microformats
Geocodes