What is OGC?

OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) is an international body developing open standards for exchanging geodata over the web. OGC standards let GIS clients, viewers, and servers from different vendors interoperate.

Key OGC services in GeoApps and Dutch geo practice: WMS (map images), WFS (vector features), WMTS (pre-rendered tiles), and historically WCS (raster download). Formats such as GML, GeoJSON, and KML follow the same interoperability idea.

PDOK, Kadaster, GeoServer, and commercial platforms publish OGC-compliant endpoints. In GeoApps you load these layers in Viewer, Dashboard, and Fieldwork without vendor lock-in on a single map engine.

OGC is not software or a dataset but a standards suite. It is not the same as ISO or INSPIRE (EU regulation), though INSPIRE often mandates OGC services. REST APIs without an OGC profile are outside OGC standards even if they deliver geodata.