KMLben

KMLben is a proposed extension to the Keyhole Markup Language (KML) intended to improve the creation, validation, and interchange of geospatial data in collaborative mapping projects. It aims to provide an extended, more human-friendly schema while maintaining compatibility with existing KML workflows and tools.

The concept originated from community discussions among GIS enthusiasts and open‑source developers in the mid to late 2010s. It has not become an official standard and has not undergone formal standardization by major bodies such as the Open Geospatial Consortium or Google. Various repositories and libraries have described implementations or converters under the KMLben name, but there is no single canonical specification.

Key goals associated with KMLben include explicit feature typing, richer metadata support, and improved data validation. The approach envisions a layered representation that can be converted to standard KML or to other widely used formats such as GeoJSON. This aims to streamline authoring for complex datasets, enable better styling and time-enabled data handling, and preserve data lineage and provenance information during interchange.

In practice, KMLben is described as using a more compact, YAML- or JSON-like representation that maps to standard KML elements such as placemarks, points, lines, polygons, styles, and extended data. The practical effect is intended to be easier data creation and error checking, with deterministic conversion to traditional KML for use in existing GIS tools.

Adoption remains limited and somewhat fragmented. Proponents cite productivity gains and clearer metadata, while critics point to lack of consensus and tooling. Most mainstream workflows continue to rely on standard KML, GeoJSON, or other established formats.