ISO19115

ISO 19115 is an international standard for metadata describing geographic information, established by ISO/TC 211. It provides a structured model and a set of metadata elements that describe a dataset or a geospatial service, including who created it, what it represents, where and when it applies, how it was produced, and how it can be accessed and used. The standard supports discovery, evaluation, and reuse of geographic information by ensuring that metadata is consistently organized and machine-readable. Core aspects include identification (title, abstract, keywords, resource type), data quality, spatial and temporal extent, reference system, distribution, constraints and rights, and lineage and process information.

ISO 19115 is complemented by ISO 19139, which encodes the metadata in XML, enabling machine-to-machine exchange. The standard is developed by ISO/TC 211 and is published in parts, notably Part 1: Fundamentals and Part 2: Extensions for imagery and gridded data, with other parts addressing domain-specific extensions. Metadata records can be created for datasets, services, and other resources and are commonly exposed in metadata catalogs and discovery services, sometimes using CSW (Catalog Service for the Web).

Adoption includes alignment with national and international initiatives such as INSPIRE in Europe, and it is often mapped to other schemas like Dublin Core for broad interoperability. Usage guidelines emphasize completeness, accuracy, and versioning of metadata to support long-term data stewardship.