ISOISO 19115 is the foundational international standard for geospatial metadata, defining the schema and elements needed to describe geographic datasets, dataset series, and geographic services. Developed by ISO Technical Committee 211 and first published in 2003, it is the reference standard used by national mapping agencies, spatial data infrastructures, and environmental data systems worldwide to catalogue and discover geographic information resources.
Background
The development of geospatial metadata standards has a long history. NASA's Directory Interchange Format (DIF) was developed at an Earth Science workshop in 1987. The US Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) developed its Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) over the period 1992--1994. The Spatial Information Council of Australia and New Zealand (ANZLIC) released its first metadata guidelines in 1996. Recognizing the need to harmonize this growing landscape of national and regional standards, ISO/TC 211 undertook the task of developing a unified international standard from approximately 1999 to 2002.
The result was ISO 19115 "Geographic Information -- Metadata", published in 2003 as part of the ISO 19100 series. The standard was substantially revised in 2014 as ISO 19115-1:2014, restructuring it into a multi-part format and accommodating the growth of internet-based metadata management. Amendments in 2018 and 2020 added new metadata categories (codelists) and the ability to limit metadata use temporally or by user. As of 2025, the standard is at stage 90.92 (to be revised), with ISO/AWI 19115-1 under development.
Purpose & Scope
ISO 19115-1 provides a clear procedure for the description of digital geographic datasets so that users can determine whether data in a holding will be of use to them and how to access it. The standard covers:
| Category | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Identification | Title, abstract, purpose, status, point of contact |
| Extent | Geographic bounding box, temporal extent, vertical extent |
| Quality | Lineage, positional accuracy, completeness |
| Spatial reference | Coordinate reference systems, projections |
| Content | Feature catalogue, coverage descriptions |
| Distribution | Format, transfer options, online resources |
| Portrayal | Portrayal catalogue references |
| Constraints | Access and use restrictions, security classification |
The standard is applicable to cataloguing all types of geospatial resources, from individual features to complete dataset series, as well as geographic services. Its principles can also be extended to non-digital resources such as maps, charts, and textual documents.
Technical Implementation
The abstract model defined in ISO 19115-1 is implemented through ISO 19139, which provides the XML Schema encoding for metadata records. This encoding is used by virtually all spatial data infrastructure catalogue services worldwide. The standard uses UML class diagrams as its normative modeling language.
Key implementation profiles include:
- INSPIRE Metadata -- The European Union's spatial data infrastructure directive mandates ISO 19115-conformant metadata
- North American Profile (NAP) -- Used by the US FGDC and GeoConnections Canada
- ANZLIC Metadata Profile -- Adapted for Australian and New Zealand spatial data requirements
Since the early 2010s, individual countries and communities have increasingly recast their previously used metadata standards as profiles or recommended subsets of ISO 19115.
Geospatial Metadata Tools
A substantial ecosystem of tools supports ISO 19115 metadata creation and management:
- GeoNetwork opensource -- a comprehensive free and open source solution for managing geospatial metadata based on international standards
- pycsw -- an OGC-compliant Catalogue Service implementation written in Python
- pygeometa -- a lightweight Python tool for generating metadata from simple YAML configuration files
- R geometa -- an R package for reading, writing, and validating ISO 19115 metadata
- GeoCat Bridge -- allows editing, validating, and publishing metadata from ArcGIS Desktop
Governance & Maintenance
ISO 19115 is developed and maintained by ISO/TC 211 Geographic Information/Geomatics. The standard follows the ISO development process with committee drafts, enquiry ballots, and formal publication. It is reviewed on a five-year cycle. The standard is proprietary and available for purchase from ISO (CHF 227 for Part 1). ISO/TC 211 coordinates with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to ensure alignment between ISO and OGC standards.
Notable Implementations
ISO 19115 metadata is required or recommended by major spatial data infrastructures and geospatial data portals worldwide:
- INSPIRE Geoportal -- European spatial data infrastructure
- US Geospatial Platform / Data.gov -- US federal geospatial data
- GeoNetwork -- open-source catalogue system used by many national and international organizations
- GEOSS -- Global Earth Observation System of Systems
- GCMD -- NASA's Global Change Master Directory
Related Standards
- ISO 19139 -- XML Schema implementation of ISO 19115 metadata
- ISO 19115-2 -- Extensions for imagery and gridded data metadata
- ISO 19115-3 -- XML Schema implementation for ISO 19115-1 fundamentals
- ISO 19119 -- Geographic information services metadata
- OGC CSW -- Catalogue Services for the Web, uses ISO 19115 metadata for discovery
- FGDC CSDGM -- The earlier US standard largely superseded by ISO 19115 profiles