XML (extensible Markup Language)—The New Language of Data Exchange

XML or extensible Markup Language is an increasingly prevalent and universally accepted standard for the encoding of data. The rapid adoption of the XML standard together with the accessibility of the Internet is revolutionising data exchange within and between organisations. The application of the XML standard to geographic information (Geographic Markup Language or GML) is for the first time providing a public, open standard for sharing and interpreting spatial data. This paper traces the origins of XML, and explains how and why XML is bringing about such fundamental change in the way we manage our data, with emphasis on its presence in the spatial information industry.