This is the root web page of the def.isotc211.org namespace reserved for
Semantic Web versions of TC-211 resources.
The types of Semantic Web resources published here are:
Currently, as of May 2025, the only Semantic Web resources published by TC-211 are some of the codelist vocabularies which are hosted for the TC-211 by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) on their reference data platform known as the 'OGC Rainbow'.
See the entire catalogue of TC-211 resources at:
In July 2025, TC-211 plans to start testing the online delivery of ontologies.
See the section Published so far below for the complete list of published resources.
TC-211 Semantic Web resources all have persistent identifiers assigned to them in the form of IRIs - web page URL addresses.
You can go to the human-readable form of any TC-211 Semantic Web resource by just clicking on its IRI, for example, here is the IRI for ISO19115’s Role Code codelist:
https://def.isotc211.org/common/RoleCode
TC-211 maintains the following patterns for its Semantic Web resources:
https://def.isotc211.org/common/{CODESET_ID} - Code Set vocabularies
{CODESET_ID} is a unique ID for the codeset based on its originating UML package location in the Harmonised Modelhttps://def.isotc211.org/ont/{ONTOLOGY_ID} - Ontologies (proposed)
{ONTOLOGY_ID} is a unique ID for the ontology based on the common name for its domainThis web page and the TC’s Semantic Web resources are managed by the TC’s Advisory Group 6: Group on Ontology Maintenance (GOM) and the OGC.
The issue trackers listing known bugs and planned future work items for this namespace and related resources are:
def.isotc211.org namesspace - please lodge any IRI faults here
Code Set vocabularies - please lodge all vocabulary content issues here
GOM's main issue tracker - please lodge all issues not covered by the above, including ontology issues, here
For any further information about these resources, please contact GOM whos contact details can be found at:
The TC-211 resources so far published as Semantic Web objects are as follows:
The Code Set vocabularies are all published online at their IRI identifier locations, for example, the ISO 19115-1 Role Codes code set is online at:
The complete listing of Code Set vocabularies published so far is given by the "common" catalogue listing of TC-211 Semantic Web resources:
No ontologies have yet been published in production. Previously TC-211 test published ontologies in XML only but these have been withdrawn.
A complete set of TC-211 Harmonised Model-based ontologies are expected by May 2026.
When published, they will be linked to from here.
We have implemented a new server to for redirections https://def.isotc211.org redirections.
This allows redirections to elements such as codes within codelists, e.g. https://def.isotc211.org/common/RoleCode/editor to the editor code, not just to the whole Code Set.
The collection of ontologies, auto-generated from TC-211 UML models, that were housed on this site have been removed.
Persistent identifiers for Codelists and Code Sets have been implemented using the
def.isotc211.org namespace.
The ISO/TC 211’s GOM has worked with the OGC to host many of the TC’s standards' codelists as Semantic Web vocabularies using the OGC’s reference data platform known as the 'OGC Rainbow'.