Tilatiedon

Tilatiedon is a Finnish term that denotes spatial information or geospatial data describing the location, shape and attributes of features on the Earth's surface. It is used in geographic information systems (GIS), cartography, urban planning and environmental monitoring to support analysis and decision-making.

Tilatiedon encompasses data such as coordinates and geometry (points, lines, polygons), topography and land cover, land use, infrastructure networks (roads, railways, utilities), cadastral information, environmental variables, and remotely sensed imagery, 3D city models and other measurements that relate to space. Data are collected from field surveys, satellite and aerial imagery, sensor networks, and government or municipal databases.

Common uses include urban planning, transportation and logistics planning, natural resource management, emergency response, public administration and service delivery. To enable reuse and interoperability, tilatiedon is described with metadata standards (for example ISO 19115) and shared through interoperability frameworks and web services (such as WMS and WFS). Typical data formats include GeoJSON, Shapefile, GeoPackage and GML.

Challenges include ensuring data quality, currency and compatibility between datasets, as well as privacy and security considerations for sensitive location data. Licensing, access rules and cost can affect availability. In Finland, tilatiedon is produced and maintained by public authorities and is a central element of land use planning, infrastructure management and public service provision, with an emphasis on open data where feasible and standardized by national geospatial policies.