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Geo (microformat)

 

 
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Geo (microformat)
 
 
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Geo is a microformat
Microformats

A microformat is a World Wide Web approach to semantic markup that seeks to re-use existing XHTML and HTML tags to convey metadata and other attributes....
 used for marking up WGS84
World Geodetic System

The World Geodetic System is a standard for use in cartography, geodesy, and navigation. It comprises a standard Cartesian coordinates for the Earth, a standard spheroid reference surface for raw altitude data, and a gravitation equipotential surface that defines the "nominal sea level"....
 geographical coordinates (latitude
Latitude

Latitude, usually denoted symbolically by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps ....
;longitude
Longitude

Longitude , symbolized by the Greek character lambda , is the geographic coordinate most commonly used in cartography and global navigation for east-west measurement....
) in (X)HTML. Although termed a "draft" specification, this is a formality, and the format is stable and in use; not least as a sub-set of the published hCalendar
HCalendar

hCalendar is a Microformats standard for displaying a semantic HTML representation of iCalendar-format calendar information about an event, on World Wide Web....
 and hCard
HCard

hCard is a microformat for publishing the contact details of people, companies, organizations, and places, in HTML, Atom , RSS , or arbitrary Extensible Markup Language....
 microformat specifications.

Use of Geo allows parsing tools (for example other websites, or Firefox's Operator extension
Operator (extension)

Operator is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. It parsing and acts upon a number of microformats, as well as validating them.Operator lets the user access microformats through a number of methods, all of which are optional: a toolbar, a toolbar button, a status bar icon, a address bar icon, or a sidebar ....
) to extract the locations, and display them using some other website or map
Map

A map is a visual representation of an area?a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as Object , regions, and topic-comment....
ping tool, or to load them into a GPS
Global Positioning System

The Global Positioning System is a global navigation satellite system developed by the United States Department of Defense and managed by the United States Air Force 50th Space Wing....
 device, index or aggregate them, or convert them into an alternative format.

Version 3 of the Firefox browser is expected to include native support for microformats, including Geo.


There are two ways to convert ordinary (X)HTML into a geo microformat:

Three classes
Adding three classes
HTML

HTML, an Acronym and initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for Web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document?by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on?and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded '...
.






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Geo is a microformat
Microformats

A microformat is a World Wide Web approach to semantic markup that seeks to re-use existing XHTML and HTML tags to convey metadata and other attributes....
 used for marking up WGS84
World Geodetic System

The World Geodetic System is a standard for use in cartography, geodesy, and navigation. It comprises a standard Cartesian coordinates for the Earth, a standard spheroid reference surface for raw altitude data, and a gravitation equipotential surface that defines the "nominal sea level"....
 geographical coordinates (latitude
Latitude

Latitude, usually denoted symbolically by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps ....
;longitude
Longitude

Longitude , symbolized by the Greek character lambda , is the geographic coordinate most commonly used in cartography and global navigation for east-west measurement....
) in (X)HTML. Although termed a "draft" specification, this is a formality, and the format is stable and in use; not least as a sub-set of the published hCalendar
HCalendar

hCalendar is a Microformats standard for displaying a semantic HTML representation of iCalendar-format calendar information about an event, on World Wide Web....
 and hCard
HCard

hCard is a microformat for publishing the contact details of people, companies, organizations, and places, in HTML, Atom , RSS , or arbitrary Extensible Markup Language....
 microformat specifications.

Use of Geo allows parsing tools (for example other websites, or Firefox's Operator extension
Operator (extension)

Operator is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. It parsing and acts upon a number of microformats, as well as validating them.Operator lets the user access microformats through a number of methods, all of which are optional: a toolbar, a toolbar button, a status bar icon, a address bar icon, or a sidebar ....
) to extract the locations, and display them using some other website or map
Map

A map is a visual representation of an area?a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as Object , regions, and topic-comment....
ping tool, or to load them into a GPS
Global Positioning System

The Global Positioning System is a global navigation satellite system developed by the United States Department of Defense and managed by the United States Air Force 50th Space Wing....
 device, index or aggregate them, or convert them into an alternative format.

Version 3 of the Firefox browser is expected to include native support for microformats, including Geo.

Usage

  • If latitude is present, so must be longitude, and vice versa.
  • The same number of decimal places should be used in each value, including trailing zeroes.


There are two ways to convert ordinary (X)HTML into a geo microformat:

Three classes


Adding three classes
HTML

HTML, an Acronym and initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for Web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document?by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on?and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded '...
. For example the marked-up text:



becomes:



by adding the class-attribute values "geo", "latitude" and "longitude".

This will display





and a geo microformat for that location, Belvide Reservoir
Belvide Reservoir

Belvide Reservoir is a reservoir in South Staffordshire, England. Owned by British Waterways, it was constructed to feed the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, which is now the Shropshire Union Canal....
, which will be detected, on this page, by microformat parsing tools.

One class

In some cases, a shorthand version may be used, with just the outer class. Latitude must be first:

Belvide Reservoir is at 52.686; -2.193.

becomes:

Belvide Reservoir is at 52.686; -2.193.

Note that the separator must be a semi-colon (;). If the display of some other separator is desired, then the abbr element can be used, with the value to be interpreted placed in its title attribute:

Belvide Reservoir is at 52.686, -2.193.

This can also be used to display the location using some other schema:

Belvide Reservoir is at Grid reference SJ870099.

However, it is considered bad practice to use abbr to hide the location completely:

Belvide Reservoir is nice to visit.

Accessibility concerns


Concerns have been expressed that the use of the abbr element (using the so-called ) in the above manner causes accessibility problems, not least for users of screen readers and aural browsers. Work is underway to find an alternative method of presenting coordinates .

hCard

Each Geo microformat may be wrapped in an hCard
HCard

hCard is a microformat for publishing the contact details of people, companies, organizations, and places, in HTML, Atom , RSS , or arbitrary Extensible Markup Language....
 microformat, allowing for the inclusion of personal, organisational or venue names, postal addresses, telephone contacts, URL
Uniform Resource Locator

In Information technology, a Uniform Resource Locator is a type of Uniform Resource Identifier that specifies where an identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it....
s, pictures, etc.

Extensions

There are three active proposals, none mutually-exclusive, to extend the geo microformat:
  • - for representing coordinates on other planets, moons etc., and with non-WSG84 schema
  • - for representing altitude
  • - for representing routes and boundaries, using waypoints


Users

Organisations and websites using Geo include:

  • Flickr
    Flickr

    Flickr is an and video hosting service website, web services suite, and online community platform. In addition to being a popular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository....
     - on over three million photo pages
  • Geograph British Isles - on over one million photo pages
  • Multimap
    Multimap.com

    Multimap.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, is a United Kingdom based provider of mapping and location-based services. The company provides both a public web site and business services....
     - all map pages
  • MyMap - example: (Taiwanese language site)
  • OpenStreetMap
    OpenStreetMap

    OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project to create a free content editable map of the world. The maps are created using data from portable GPS devices, aerial photography and other free sources....
     - wiki pages about places, GPS traces and diary entries
  • The West Midland Bird Club
    West Midland Bird Club

    The West Midland Bird Club is the United Kingdom's largest regional ornithology society. It has been serving birdwatchers and ornithologists in the four England counties of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and the Metropolitan West Midlands , with lectures, field trips, research, a bulletin and an annual report, since 1929....
  • - location enhanced browsing on mobile phone
  • Wikipedia
    Wikipedia

    Wikipedia is a Free content, multilingualism encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit organization Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki and encyclopedia....
     - embedded in geo templates of map-link pages
    • German Wikipedia
      German Wikipedia

      The German Wikipedia is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia. It is the second largest Wikipedia, after the English Wikipedia, and was one of the first to be created....
       - ditto
    • Dutch Wikipedia
      Dutch Wikipedia

      The Dutch Wikipedia is the Dutch language edition of Wikipedia. Started on 19 June 2001, this edition reached 100,000 articles on 14 October 2005....
       - ditto
    • Swedish Wikipedia
      Swedish Wikipedia

      The Swedish Wikipedia is the Swedish language edition of Wikipedia. It was the third edition of Wikipedia, started in May 2001 alongside German Wikipedia, after English Wikipedia and Catalan Wikipedia....
       - ditto
    • Italian Wikipedia
      Italian Wikipedia

      The Italian Wikipedia is the Italian language edition of Wikipedia. This edition was started in January 2002 and has over 527,000 articles and more than 338,000 registered accounts as of January 5, 2009....
  • Wikitravel
    Wikitravel

    Wikitravel is a World Wide Web-based project "to create a free content, complete, up-to-date, and reliable worldwide guide book." Launched in July 2003 by Evan Prodromou and Michele Ann Jenkins, the Web site is based upon the wiki model, using the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license....


Many of the organisations publishing hCard include a geo as part of that.

See also

  • ICBM address
    ICBM address

    ICBM address or missile address is Hacker slang for one's longitude and latitude when placed in a signature block or another publicly available file....
  • LOC record
    LOC record

    In the Domain Name System, a LOC record is a means for expressing geographic location information for a domain name.It contains WGS84 Latitude, Longitude and Altitude information together with host/subnetwork physical size and location accuracy....


External links

  • with notes and examples
  • a quick reference