The Open Geospatial Consortium’s Web Feature Service defines a standard interface for requesting geographic features across the web — querying, retrieving and in some profiles editing vector data rather than rendered map images. Together with WMS it is the foundation of two decades of public-sector spatial data infrastructure, and its successor is published as OGC API — Features.
OGC WFS
OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) defines a standard interface for requesting geographic features across the web — querying, retrieving and, in the transactional profile, editing vector data rather than rendered map images. Together with WMS it is the foundation of two decades of public-sector spatial data infrastructure.
- Features, not pictures - WMS returns a rendered map; WFS returns the geometry and attributes behind it, which is what makes it queryable.
- GML on the wire - The default output is Geography Markup Language, with other encodings negotiable.
- Transactional profile - WFS-T allows inserts, updates and deletes, making it one of the few read-write standards in the geospatial stack.
- Superseded, not retired - OGC API — Features is the successor, and it is a genuine reset: OpenAPI-described, JSON-first, resource-oriented.
WFS is worth understanding precisely because so much public geospatial infrastructure still runs on it. Any national mapping agency, environment ministry or municipal open data portal is likely serving WFS endpoints today, and the migration to OGC API — Features is the clearest example in the catalog of a standards body successfully rebuilding a legacy interface as a modern API rather than defending it.
Industry: Geospatial
