OGC API

OGC API is a family of standards from the Open Geospatial Consortium for sharing geospatial data and processes over modern web APIs. Where the older OGC web services — WFS for features, WMS for maps, WCS for coverages — used bespoke XML request styles, the OGC API family is built on resource-oriented REST, JSON, and OpenAPI descriptions. It brings decades of geospatial interoperability work in line with how developers actually build and consume APIs today.

• Building-block design - A shared “Common” core plus modular parts (Features, Tiles, Maps, Coverages, Processes, Records) that compose rather than one monolithic spec.
• OpenAPI-native - Each OGC API is described with OpenAPI, so standard API tooling, docs, and codegen work out of the box.
• JSON and GeoJSON payloads - Web-friendly formats replace the heavier XML of legacy OGC services.
• Backward lineage - Directly modernizes WFS, WMS, and WCS, giving existing geospatial infrastructure a REST-first path forward.

In practice OGC API is how the geospatial world is folding into the mainstream API economy. Government mapping agencies, earth-observation providers, and location-data platforms increasingly expose OGC API Features or Tiles endpoints, which means geospatial data can now be discovered, documented, and governed with the same OpenAPI-based tooling as any other API. For anyone cataloging or scoring APIs, that OpenAPI grounding is what makes these endpoints machine-readable and agent-ready rather than a specialized silo requiring domain-specific clients.