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WFS (Web Feature Service)

An OGC standard that allows users to access and manipulate vector spatial features over the web, supporting dynamic querying and editing of spatial data (standard GIS usage).

WFS (Web Feature Service)

Explain WFS (Web Feature Service)

An Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard called WFS (Web Feature Service) enables real-time online access, querying, and manipulation of vector spatial data. WFS provides the actual geographic features (points, lines, and polygons) combined with their attribute data, enabling interactive GIS applications, in contrast to WMS (Web Map Service), which merely offers map images.


Key Features of WFS:


  • Offers unprocessed vector data in GML (Geography Markup Language) formats.

  • Enables attribute and geographical queries, including the ability to filter features within a certain region.

  • Permits the insertion, updating, and deletion of data if the server is compatible with WFS-T (Transactional WFS).

  • Permits GIS clients and servers, regardless of vendor, to communicate with one another.


WFS is essential to distributed geospatial systems because it facilitates dynamic, adaptable access to geographical data over networks.

Related Keywords

In GIS, a Web Feature Service (WFS) is a common protocol that enables online access to and manipulation of geographic features. WFS gives customers the ability to query, retrieve, update, and edit real vector data (points, lines, and polygons) in formats like GML, in contrast to WMS, which only offers map images. Because it enables dynamic interaction with spatial data, it is crucial for applications that need to analyse and integrate GIS data in real-time.

An OGC standard called WFS (Web Feature Service) enables online access to and manipulation of geographic vector data. It supports querying, filters, and updates for dynamic GIS applications and, in contrast to WMS, offers real feature data (points, lines, and polygons) in formats like GML or GeoJSON.

Whereas WFS (Web Feature Service) offers real vector data for querying and analysis, WMS (Web Map Service) offers map pictures for viewing. WFS is used to access and deal with spatial data, while WMS is used for visualization.

Using common OGC protocols, users can serve and get geographic vector data online with open-source WFS (Web Feature Service) servers. Popular choices that facilitate searching, filtering, and editing of spatial features are GeoServer, MapServer, and Deegree. These servers facilitate interoperability across many GIS platforms and are frequently used in GIS applications to share data in formats such as GML, GeoJSON, and Shapefile.

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