Geoportal


A geoportal is a type of web portal used to find and access geographic information and associated geographic services via the Internet. Geoportals are important for effective use of geographic information systems and a key element of Spatial Data Infrastructure.
Geographic information providers, including government agencies and commercial sources, use geoportals to publish descriptions of their geographic information. Geographic information consumers, professional or casual, use geoportals to search and access the information they need. Thus geoportals serve an increasingly important role in the sharing of geographic information and can avoid duplicated efforts, inconsistencies, delays, confusion, and wasted resources.

Background

The United States National Spatial Data Infrastructure , started in 1994, is considered the earliest geoportal concept. The U.S. Federal Geospatial Data Committee coordinated development of the NSDI Clearinghouse Network, the first large geoportal. It has many distributed catalogs that can be searched via a client interface.
First released in 2003, the Geospatial One-Stop geoportal was developed as part of a U.S. e-government initiative. Unlike the NSDI Clearinghouse Network, GOS was built around a centralized metadata catalog database, with an architecture that links users to data providers through a Web-based geoportal. The user of GOS may employ a simple Web browser or may interface directly with a GIS.
More recently, there has been a proliferation of geoportals for sharing of geographic information based on region or theme. Examples include the INSPIRE, or Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community geoportal, the NatCarb geoportal, which provides geographic information concerning carbon sequestration in the United States, and UNSDI, the United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure.
Modern web-based geoportals include direct access to raw data in multiple formats, complete metadata, online visualization tools so users can create maps with data in the portal, automated provenance linkages across users, datasets and created maps, commenting mechanisms to discuss data quality and interpretation, and sharing or exporting created maps in various formats. Open portals allow user contribution of datasets as well.
In September 2011, GOS was retired and the content it included by then became part of the broader open data site . At the same time, the United States federal government launched the , which represents a shift from focusing on cataloging references to resources, to providing shared web services for national significant datasets, API for developers, and end-user applications.

List of geoportals

nameclassterritorycontentdevelopertechnologyyear from
geoportal software2014
geoportal software2013
global geoportalglobal
global geoportalglobalESRIArcGIS Server
national geoportalEgypt2016
international geoportalEurope
national geoportalAndorra
national geoportalBelarus
national geoportalChile
national geoportalColombia
national geoportalColombia, Bogotá
national geoportalCroatia
national geoportalDenmark
national geoportalEstonia
national geoportalFinland
national geoportalFrance
national geoportalFrance
national geoportalFrance
national geoportalGuatemala
national geoportalIndia
national geoportalIndia
national geoportalIreland
national geoportalItaly
national geoportalLithuania
national geoportalLuxembourg
theme geoportalMongoliaALAMGaCArcGIS Server2019
national geoportalNetherlands
national geoportalNetherlands
national geoportalNetherlands
national geoportalNew Zealand
national geoportalNorway
national geoportalPoland
national geoportalPortugal
national geoportalRussian Federation2010
national geoportalRussian Federation
national geoportalSerbia
national geoportalSpain
national geoportalSpain
national geoportalSpain
national geoportalSpain
national geoportalSpain
national geoportalSpain, Madrid
national geoportalSpain
national geoportalSwitzerland
national data portalUnited Kingdom
national geoportalUnited Kingdom
national geoportalUnited States
national geoportalUnited States
national geoportalUnited States
national geoportalVenezuela
city geoportalUAE, Abu Dhabi
state geoportalUSA, Arkansas
state geoportalUSA, California
city geoportalVenezuela, Caracas
state geoportalSpain, Catalonia
state geoportalSpain, Basque Country
state geoportalUSA, New Mexico
state geoportalGermany, Rhineland Palatinate
state geoportalKazakhstan, Kyzylorda Region
theme geoportalUnited States
National GeoportalNepal2018
Regional GeoportalGeospatial network of Latin America and the CaribbeanCAF, USGSESRI Geoportal2007