Geographical Linked Data: The Administrative Geography of Great Britain on the Semantic Web

This article discusses the production of an example dataset for the administrative geography of Great Britain, demonstrating the advantages of explicitly encoding topological relations between geographic entities over traditional spatial queries.

Abstract

Abstract Ordnance Survey, the national mapping agency of Great Britain, is investigating how semantic web technologies assist its role as a geographical information provider. A major part of this work involves the development of prototype products and datasets in RDF. This article discusses the production of an example dataset for the administrative geography of Great Britain, demonstrating the advantages of explicitly encoding topological relations between geographic entities over traditional spatial queries. We also outline how these data can be linked to other datasets on the web of linked data and some of the challenges that this raises.