There is growing interest in the development of a common feature-based model for geographic names databases, often referred to as gazetteers.This candidate OGC best practice describes the Gazetteer Service Application Profile of the OGC Web Feature Service Interface Standard. This document is an OGC Best Practice on a particular technology or approach related to the use of OGC standards.

The following organizations submitted this Best Practice to the OGC:

-  CubeWerx Inc.

-  Intergraph Government Solutions

-  The Carbon Project

-  US Army Corps of Engineers Army Geospatial Center (AGC)

-  US Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)

-  US Geological Survey (USGS)

-  US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)

The candidate OGC Gazetteer Best Practices Document is available for public review and comment at http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/83.  Submit comments on the candidate Best Practices document to requests@lists.opengeospatial.org. The comment period ends January 6, 2012.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 430 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC Standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC Standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at   http://www.opengeospatial.org.