geo

2007-06-05T14:19:37Z

DaveOzzz: /* Examples in the wild */

<h1> geo </h1>
*http://rbach.priv.at/2006/buttons/geo.png
'''geo''' (working name, pronounced "gee-oh") is a simple format for marking up [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGS84 WGS84] geographic coordinates (latitude; longitude), suitable for embedding in (X)HTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML. '''geo''' is a 1:1 representation of the "geo" property in the vCard standard ([http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2426.txt RFC2426]) in XHTML, one of several open [[microformats|microformat]] standards.
__TOC__

== Draft Specification ==

=== Editor/Author ===
[http://tantek.com/ Tantek Çelik], [http://technorati.com Technorati, Inc.]

=== Copyright ===
{{MicroFormatCopyrightStatement2005}}

=== Patents ===
{{MicroFormatPatentStatement}}

=== Inspiration and Acknowledgments ===
Thanks to everyone who participated in the [[geo-bof-2005-06-30|Geo Microformat BOF at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 conference]], and in particular to [http://radar.oreilly.com/nat/ Nat Torkington] and Vee McMillen of [http://oreilly.com O'Reilly] for [http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/where2005/view/e_sess/7476 arranging and hosting the BOF]. Thanks to Chris Hibbbert for providing the [http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=dc4754bf-64d5-4f28-8715-45ad2505c86f real world geo-caching example].

== Introduction and Background ==
The vCard standard ([http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2426.txt RFC2426]), has been broadly and interoperably implemented (e.g. Apple's Address Book application). The [[hcard|hCard]] microformat has similarly received significant adoption, from numerous sites publishing the format, to hCard to vCard proxies, to clientside javascript parsers.

At the [http://conferences.oreillynet.com/where/ Where 2.0 conference] in June 2005, there was widespread recognition that the community needed a way to simply and easily publish visible, extractable, geographic location information on the Web, given how often bloggers, and numerous other sites publish such information. The [[geo-bof-2005-06-30|geo microformat BOF]] discussed this very topic, and concluded with a consensus decision to just try using ''geo'' from vCard/hCard.

This specification introduces the '''geo''' microformat, which is a 1:1 representation of the aforementioned ''geo'' property from the vCard standard, by simply reusing the ''geo'' property and sub-properties as-is from the [[hcard|hCard]] microformat.

Publishers can both embed '''geo''' addresses directly in their web pages and feeds, as well as markup existing latitude/longitude coordinates in the context of the rest of the information in their web pages and feeds.

If the publisher knows and is publishing the ''name'' of the location in addition to its geo lat/long, then the publisher MUST use [[hcard|hCard]] instead of just '''geo''' to publish the name and geo lat/long of the location.

If the publisher knows and is publishing the address of the location, OR if the address of the location was what was actually entered by a human, and the publisher simply turned that into lat/long using some sort of a service, then the publisher SHOULD use [[adr]] to publish the actual human entered address information since that communicates far more semantic information than a simple geo lat/long coordinate.

== Semantic XHTML Design Principles ==
{{semantic-xhtml-design-principles}}

== Format ==
=== Singular Properties ===

Note that all the properties in '''geo''' are singular properties, and thus the first descendant element with that class should take effect, any others being ignored.

=== Human vs. Machine readable ===

If an <code><abbr></code> element is used for a property, then the <code>title</code> attribute of the <code><abbr></code> element is the value of the property, instead of the contents of the element, which instead provide a human presentable version of the value.

=== Value excerpting ===

Sometimes only part of an element which is the equivalent for a property should be used for the value of the property. For this purpose, the special class name <code>value</code> is used to excerpt out the subset of the element that is the value of the property. See [[hcard|hCard]] for details on this.

=== Root Class Name ===

The root class name for an geo location is <code>geo</code>.

=== Property List ===

This is the list of properties in geo, taken from [[hcard|hCard]]:

* latitude
* longitude

=== XMDP Profile ===

See [[hcard-profile]] for the [http://gmpg.org/xmdp XMDP] profile of hCard which contains the above complete list of properties, with references to their RFC 2426 definitions.

=== Parsing Details ===

See [[hcard-parsing|hCard parsing]], with the only difference being that "geo" is the root class name, rather than "vcard".

== Examples ==

This section is informative.

=== Example from RFC2426 ===

Section 3.4.2 of RFC2426 has a simple geo example:

<pre><nowiki>
GEO:37.386013;-122.082932
</nowiki></pre>

this vCard fragment as a geo, as [http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-examples#3.4.2_GEO_Type_Definition first documented on the hCard examples page]:

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="geo">GEO:
<span class="latitude">37.386013</span>,
<span class="longitude">-122.082932</span>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

this geo could be displayed as: 

<div class="geo">GEO: <span class="latitude">37.386013</span>, <span class="longitude">-122.082932</span></div>

Note that this is a '''live''' geo microformat, which will be found on this page by parsers.

=== Real world geo example ===

Here is a sample of published lat/long info (from [http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=dc4754bf-64d5-4f28-8715-45ad2505c86f geocaching: Noble Steed]):

<pre><nowiki>
N 37° 24.491 W 122° 08.313
</nowiki></pre>

With geo markup:

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="geo">
<abbr class="latitude" title="37.408183">N 37° 24.491</abbr>
<abbr class="longitude" title="-122.13855">W 122° 08.313</abbr>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This geo might be displayed as: 

<div class="geo"><abbr class="latitude" title="37.408183">N 37° 24.491</abbr> <abbr class="longitude" title="-122.13855">W 122° 08.313</abbr>
</div>

Again, this is a '''live''' example.

Note that since the real world example used a more human readable presentation of the geo coordinates, we use the [[abbr-design-pattern]] to keep that more human readable presentation, and in addition provide the respective absolute numerical values for the geo.

== Examples in the wild ==
This section is '''informative'''.

The following sites have published geos, outside their normal context of hCards, and thus are a great place to start for anyone looking for examples "in the wild" to try parsing, indexing, organizing etc., in addition to those in many [[hcard-examples-in-wild|hCard examples in the wild]]. If you find geos outside of hCards anywhere else, feel free to add them to the '''top''' of this list. Once the list grows too big, we'll make a separate wiki page.

Pages with live Geo can use this button (see [[buttons#Geo]] for any recent additions): http://rbach.priv.at/2006/buttons/geo.png

*[http://www.davidosbornephotography.co.uk/gallery2/main.php www.davidosbornephotography.co.uk] has implemented Geo on all location photography pages; eg. [http://www.davidosbornephotography.co.uk/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=1747 Callanish Stones]
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Templates_generating_Geo Wikipedia-EN templates_generating_Geo]
*Wikipedia-IT now has Geo on all [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciale:PuntanoQui/Template:Coord pages using the ''coord'' template], e.g. [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messina Messina]. [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] 07:05, 26 May 2007 (PDT)
*'Area' pages on Wholemap, summarizing the photos, videos, etc... for a specific area, now have Geo codes - [http://wholemap.com/map/area.php?area=NiagaraFalls Niagara Falls, for example] May 10, 2007
*The Italian Wikipedia, for example [http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genova Genova (Genoa)]
*I've just added geo support to all of [http://socialight.com Socialight]'s Sticky Notes - here's an example - http://socialight.com/note/2007/4/14/11Aqk_a-great-way-to-spend-a-few-hours
*The [http://www.bayofislands.net/ Bay of Islands] site has geo on its main page, and all photo pages. Example: [http://www.bayofislands.net/photos/8/ photo of Edgewater Apartments]
*I've added geo to [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Location_dec_US all images tagged in Wikimedia Commons] using decimal values. Example: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Montreal_City_Hall_Jan_2006.jpg Montreal City Hall, Jan 2006] [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] 08:54, 12 Apr 2007 (PDT)
**Now on pages tagged in D-M-S also.
*Spotstor.com - e.g. [http://spotstor.com] uses Geo for all coordinates displayed on the site.
*Panoramio - e.g. [http://www.panoramio.com/photo/564690]
* Wikipedia-NL now has Geo on all its map-links pages, e.g. [http://www.nsesoftware.nl/wiki/maps.asp?params=52_28_47_N_1_53_51_W_type:city_region:GB&src=Birmingham_%28Engeland%29 maps for Wikipedia-NL article on Birmingham]
**Called from '''87,724''' article pages as of 2006-04-09; reportedly the sixth most popular website in the Netherlands [http://www.multiscope.nl/organisatie/nieuws/sberichten/nederlandse-wikipedia-groeit-als-kool.html].
* I recently added Geo to Wikipedia-DE's map link pages e.g. [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/geo/geohack.php?language=de&params=52_28_47_N_1_53_51_W_type:city_region:GB maps for Wikipedia-DE article on Birmingham]. [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] 14:27, 9 Apr 2007 (PDT)
* I've just added "geo" to OpenStreetMap documentation pages - see [http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Birmingham Birmingham page on OpenStreetMap] for example. [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] 02:39, 6 Apr 2007 (PDT)
* I've [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AGeoTemplate&diff=119003866&oldid=118216477 just added] Geo to Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:GeoTemplate GeoTemplate] which is called by '''many thousands''' of other Wikipedia pages. Example: the coordinates (top right) in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barr] link to [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/geo/geohack.php?params=52.54833_N_1.93212_W_region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SP047945)]; the latter now has a Geo microformat. [[User:AndyMabbett|Andy Mabbett]] 03:38, 30 Mar 2007 (PDT)
** [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~kolossos/wp-world/imageworld-art.php Map showing global distribution of geo-tagged Wikipedia articles].
* [http://www.jillesvangurp.com/places jillesvangurp.com] provides an xsl stylesheet to transform Google Earth place-marks (kmz files) into html with nested lists of geo formatted places. Several examples are provided.
*[http://www.geograph.org.uk Geograph British Isles] has experimental support for geos on '''350,000+''' photo pages, for example http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1234
*[http://www.poi66.com/ POI66] has '''over 58,500''' waypoints geo-formatted, many describing [[geo-waypoint-examples|trails]] e.g [http://www.poi66.com/maps/show_album.php?album=santiago Mijn pelgrimstocht naar Santiago]
* [http://3amproductions.net 3AM Productions] has published coordinates of cities both in and outside the context of hCards under [http://3amproductions.net/jason.php Jason's] and [http://3amproductions.net/gilbert.php Gil's] pages.
* [http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/events/ Dan Connoly's Index of Events] has a few geos
** Notes that two of the geos are considered invalid because they use commas instead of semicolons
*Wikitravel now has the facility to add co-ordinates for the subject of the article, and publishes them as a 'geo' microformat - e.g. [http://wikitravel.org/en/Birmingham_%28England%29 Wikitravel - Birmingham]; see [http://wikitravel.org/shared/Tech:Add_SpecialMap_using_Mapstraction_link_for_geo-tagged_pages_and_for_single_listings The announcement].
* [http://flickr.com/ Flickr] now [http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2006/08/great_shot_wher.html supports the geo microformat] on all [http://flickr.com/map/ geotagged photos]. Within 11 days of launch there are now over '''3,000,000+''' photos (as of 2006-09-07) marked up with the "geo" microformat.
* [http://ocono.com/ ocono.com] has marked each of it's "Upcoming Events" items with lat/long values.
* [http://harry.hchen1.com/mylife.htm Harry Chen has marked up his geo location]
* [http://www.multimap.com Multimap.com] uses the geo microformat to mark up latitude and longitude values on map pages.
* [http://rasterweb.net/raster/ Pete Prodoehl] geotags posts on his blog.
* [http://07.pagesd.info/ 07.pagesd.info] uses the geo microformat to mark up latitude and longitude values for each commune of the Ardèche département in France.
* [http://www.openguides.org/ OpenGuides] has support for the geo microformat in svn, and for now you can see it in action on the [http://cotswolds.openguides.org/ Cotswolds OpenGuide]

== Implementations ==
This section is '''informative'''.

The following implementations have been developed which either generate or parse geos outside the context of hCards. If you have an geo implementation, feel free to add it to the '''top''' of this list. Once the list grows too big, we'll make a separate wiki page.

*GIS-Wiki's "[http://www.giswiki.org/hjl_get_CoorE.htm hjl_getCoor]" now outputs Geo markup, from a Google Maps API.
*[http://www.addressfix.com/ AddressFix] takes any valid address in the listed countries (as at 2003-07) or map point (using GoogleMaps API) and outputs geo markup.
**Countries: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Italy, Japan (but only in Japanese), Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States of America and the Vatican City.
**For countries other than the UK, the British Isles and China it provides geocoding for country names and city names (e.g. "Nairobi, Kenya").
**For UK, the British Isles and China, Google returns an error.
* [http://code.highearthorbit.com/greaseroute/index.php GreaseRoute] is a GreaseMonkey user script (also available as a simple Firefox Extension) which will add icons for displaying the MapQuest map of a [[geo]]. Written by [http://highearthorbit.com Andrew Turner]
* [http://www.podster.de/page/geotest podster.de] finds geo markups in podcast RSS Feeds and maps soundseeing episodes on a map (German only)
* [http://blog.codeeg.com/ Calvin Yu] has written a [http://blog.codeeg.com/2006/01/28/using-microformats-to-plot-my-favorite-places/ web service that will allow you plot and describe places on a Yahoo Map easily] using [[hreview|hReview]] and [[geo]].
* [http://bluesmoon.blogspot.com/ Philip Tellis] has written a [http://bluesmoon.blogspot.com/2006/01/of-microformats-and-geocoding.html javascript to add maps to geo markup on pages]
* [http://placenamehere.com/TXP/pnh_mf/ pnh_mf] is a plugin for [http://textpattern.com/ Textpattern] that supports embedding geos and other microformats in templates and blog posts. Written by [http://placenamehere.com/ Chris Casciano].
* [http://bluesmoon.blogspot.com/ Philip Tellis] has written some javascript to [http://bluesmoon.blogspot.com/2006/01/of-microformats-and-geocoding.html convert the geo microformat to a google map] using [[geo]].
* Brian Suda has written some [http://suda.co.uk/projects/microformats/geo/ geo extracting] code to convert geo microformats to KML for use with Google Maps and Google Earth. There is also a bookmarklet to extract the data and pass it to google maps automatically. He is working on a GeoRSS version for Yahoo! Maps as well.
* Fil explains [http://www.jquery.info/spip.php?article7 how to use the geo microformat with the javascript library jQuery] [http://jquery.com].
* [http://georss.org/geopress GeoPress] is a WordPress (http://wordpress.org) plugin that supports embedding adrs, geo, maps (dynamically switchable between Google-Yahoo-Microsoft Maps), and GeoRSS (http://georss.org) feeds. Written by [http://highearthorbit.com Andrew Turner]

== References ==
=== Normative References ===
* [[hcard|hCard]]

=== Informative References ===
* [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2426.txt vCard RFC2426] ([http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/rfc2426 HTML reformatted version of RFC2426])
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/ XHTML 1.0 SE]
* [http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tigermap.html TIGER Map Service]
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagging Wikipedia article on GeoTagging]

== Work in progress ==
This specification is a work in progress. As additional aspects are discussed, understood, and written, they will be added.

* Proposals for changes, additions and other thoughts about [[geo]] may be found in the [[hcard-brainstorming#geo_improvements|hCard brainstorming - geo improvements]] section.

== Related Work ==
* [[luna]] (proposal for geo-style microformat for co-ordinates on The Moon)
* [[mars]] (proposal for geo-style microformat for co-ordinates on the planet Mars)
* [[geo-extension-strawman]] - extends [[geo]] to include the above, and for representing coordinates on other planets, moons etc.
* [[thoughts-on-extending-the-geo-microformat|thoughts on addind time and reference system]] to the geo microformat, that could also be used for places on other celestial bodies

== Similar Work ==
* [[adr]]
* [[hcalendar|hCalendar]]
* [[XOXO]]

== See Also ==
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_%28microformat%29 Geo on Wikipedia]
* See [http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/referer.html blogs discussing this page]
* [http://wikitravel.org/en/Wikitravel:Geocoding#Sources_for_lat.2Flongs Sources for latitude/ longitude coordinates]

== Related Pages ==
{{geo-related-pages}}

Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

geo