Overview
ISO 19135-1:2015 - Geographic information: Procedures for item registration (Part 1: Fundamentals) defines the fundamental procedures and management elements for establishing, maintaining and publishing registers of unique, unambiguous, permanent identifiers and their meanings for items of geographic information. The standard ensures registration uses linguistically independent identifiers and specifies the elements necessary to manage registration activities so registers are consistent, auditable and interoperable.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Scope and conformance classes: Defines general, core, extended and hierarchical register conformance classes and how implementations can claim conformance.
- Roles and responsibilities: Formal roles such as register owner, register manager, registry manager, control body, submitting organizations and register users, with responsibilities for appointment, approval and governance.
- Management of registers: Procedures for establishment, status handling and lifecycle of register items including addition, clarification, invalidation, retirement and supersession.
- Submission and approval processes: Rules for submitting registration proposals, processing, approval and publication of register items.
- Register schema: Core data model elements (e.g., Register, RegisterStakeholder, ItemClass, RegisterItem) and extensions for hierarchical registers (including SubregisterDescription).
- Publication, integrity and versioning: Requirements to publish register contents, maintain integrity, document states of items and manage temporal change.
- Annexes and implementation aids: Includes test suites, UML models, guidance on proposal processing and backward compatibility; Part 2 of ISO 19135 provides an XML Schema implementation.
Practical applications and who uses it
ISO 19135-1:2015 is used where stable, unambiguous identification of GIS concepts, code lists or metadata items is required:
- National mapping agencies and government data stewards establishing authoritative registers or code lists.
- Standards bodies and registry operators managing shared vocabularies across organizations.
- GIS data managers and cataloguers who need persistent identifiers for features, attributes or classifications.
- Software developers and integrators implementing metadata, semantic interoperability, or data exchange systems that rely on registered identifiers.
- Organizations implementing ISO/TC 211 standards (e.g., ISO 19115 metadata) to reference consistent item definitions.
Benefits include improved interoperability, international recognition of registered items, support for multilingual labels and temporal management of changes, and a standardized mechanism to manage and publish authoritative identifiers.
Related standards
- ISO 19135 (overall series) - Part 2: XML Schema Implementation (implementation guidance)
- Other ISO/TC 211 standards (e.g., ISO 19115 metadata) that reference registered items and code lists
Keywords: ISO 19135-1:2015, geographic information, item registration, register schema, persistent identifier, register manager, ISO/TC 211, hierarchical registers, metadata, conformance.
