Lower barriers to simple and accessible geospatial information on the Web, through voluntary open standards.
Maps and location information on the World Wide Web, or the “Web”, are essential digital tools that can enable Canadians to fully benefit from the information economy. Their creation and use must be as inclusive and standardized as possible so that everyone can access them across different web browsers and platforms.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guides the development of the Web through a consensus-driven, voluntary open standards development process. The W3C Maps for HTML Community Group led by Natural Resources Canada works to gather and distill user requirements to standardize maps and location information on the Web.
Map Markup Language (MapML) is a proposed extension of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) Standard that incorporates modern web map rendering and user experience into the standard web browsers that everyone uses. If adopted, the standard will enable simple, accessible, and programmable web maps for everyone. Today, you can experience the future of mapping on web browsers by using a website, such as this one, which is equipped with the reference implementation of MapML in standard HTML custom elements.
Natural Resources Canada participates and leads standards development for geographic information in support of the priorities of the Government of Canada, for all Canadians.
Maps and location information are essential digital infrastructure, allowing all Canadians to fully benefit from the information economy, so their creation and use must be as inclusive and standardized as possible.
If you know a little bit about HTML already, that should be enough for you to try MapML, because it has been designed for HTML authors who may not yet necessarily be Web map developers. A good place to start learning about how to use the language is the introductory tutorial. If you find the tutorial of interest, a good way to continue your learning is by reading the documentation. Once you have consulted the documentation and you find yourself intrigued by the project, you should consider getting involved! Even if you don’t have time to contribute, please get in touch to let us know what you think.
The primary means by which anyone can contribute to the Maps for HTML initiative is on GitHub. Since the objective of the project is to develop an open standard, contributions to the group must be appropriately licensed by the contributor and/or their contributing organization. The W3C Community and Business Groups program is organized to streamline the process of contribution licensing. Please consider having your organization join the Maps for HTML Community Group, which will allow the group to readily integrate your contributed ideas, code and documentation, through GitHub facilities.
Access resources pertaining to MapML.
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Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation
Natural Resources Canada
Government of Canada
geo@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca
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