Linked GeoRef

DATA LYSATORweb data solutions and training

Linked GeoRefAn Open Dataset and API for Improving GeographicalAnnotation and Finding of Public Sector Information

Knud Möller (Datalysator), Florian Marienfeld (Willhöft IT) 2nd Open Data Dialog, 19 November 2013, Berlin, Germany

D TALYSATORweb data solutions and training

The Challenge

•Most (Open (Government)) datasets refer to some location.

•Let’s declare that in the metadata!

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http://www.opendata-hro.de


Which Standard?•There are plenty of options

• ISO authority: ISO 3166-1/2, Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions

• EU regulation: NUTS (Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics)

• German elaboration: Amtlicher Gemeindeschlüssel (AGS) / Amtlicher Regionalschlüssel (ARS)

• Geometry: Geographical Bounding Boxes

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Best fit for Germany?• AGS would work great

• From federal states down to boroughs:

• 05: Nordrhein-Westfalen

• 3: Regierungsbezirk Köln

• 82: Rhein-Sieg-Kreis

• 064: Gemeinde Swisttal

➡ 0538364

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05: Nordrhein-Westfalen

053: Regierungsbezirk Köln

05382: Rhein-Sieg-Kreis

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05382064: Gemeinde Swisttal

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Problems with AGS

•only Germany

•not even all of it:

•no further detail for city-states like Berlin or Hamburg (no “Neukölln” in AGS)

• city states have their own local systems, e.g. “Lebensweltlich orientierte Räume” (LOR) in Berlin

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Problems with others• NUTS and ISO:

• not as detailed as AGS

• not “at home” in administration

• bounding boxes

• not precise enough

• coordinates not so easy to read as text

• Everybody likes their own approach best...

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Why Choose?

• Proposal: Linked Data solution

• combine all approaches in one dataset

• every code in every system gets unique identifier: a URI - dereference it (surf to it) and find out what it means!

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• codes are linked: what is the same? what is contained in what (hierarchy)?


Linked GeoRef• http://lgeoref.org/nuts/DE (Germany)

• http://lgeoref.org/nuts/DEA (North Rhine-Westphalia)

• http://lgeoref.org/ags/05 (North Rhine-Westphalia)

• http://lgeoref.org/ags/12 (Brandenburg)

• http://lgeoref.org/ags/05/3/82 (Rhein-Sieg-Kreis)

• http://lgeoref.org/berlin/lor/08 (Neukölln)

• http://lgeoref.org/berlin/lor/02/02/02/06 (Graefekiez)

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Integrate Reference Systems

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DE

DEA DE3

Germany

NRW Berlin



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DE

DEA DE3

Germany

1105

05/3

05/3/82

05/3/82/064

NRW Berlin

Reg.-Bez. Köln

Rhein-Sieg-Kreis

Swisttal



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DE

DEA DE3

Germany

1105

05/3

05/3/82

05/3/82/064

NRW Berlin

Reg.-Bez. Köln

Rhein-Sieg-Kreis

Swisttal

02

02/02

02/02/02

02/02/02/08

08

Neukölln

Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg

Kreuzberg Süd

Tempelhofer Vorstadt

Graefekiez

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Usecase: govdata.de

• geo-referencing data

• map-based search and filtering

• hard to enforce one scheme in metadata

• Linked GeoRef could help: spatial-uri field in addition to spatial (coordinates) and spatial-text (human-readable):

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"spatial-uri": "http://lgeoref.org/berlin/lor/08"


Usecase: Code Converter

• convert between different reference systems

• “which AGS is this NUTS ‘DEE’”?

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Collateral Usage

•central reference point for different code systems

•lookup for relations between codes (containment, identity, overlap, etc.)

•links to other widely-used reference datasets, e.g. DBpedia, GeoNames

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Internals• data in various formats (mostly Excel) from various

sources converted to RDF

• interlinked, enriched and linked to external data (DBpedia, Geonames)

• each reference system in its own namespace

• http://lgeoref.org/ags/

• http://lgeoref.org/nuts/

• http://lgeoref.org/berlin/lor/

• etc.

• hosted in RDF store with SPARQL endpoint (dydra.com)

• simple Linked Data frontend with Pubby

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Take-home• challenge: Open Data needs geographical

context

• many useful geo reference systems (AGS, NUTS, ...)

• but: everybody likes a different one

• so: don’t choose, use all of them together

• Linked GeoRef provides integrated, dereferenceable framework for this

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References

• NUTS: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/nuts_nomenclature/introduction

• AGS: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtlicher_Gemeindeschlüssel

• LOR: http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/planen/basisdaten_stadtentwicklung/lor/

• Dydra: http://dydra.com

• Pubby: https://github.com/cygri/pubby

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Linked GeoRef

Technology

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