MassGIS Geospatial Web Services Homepage
This is the home of the MassGIS geospatial web services project. This site contains information on accessing, using and developing against MassGIS-maintained “Web Map Service” and “Web Feature Service” services. Anyone may use these services. Questions about how to use the MassGIS web services can be sent to:
- Aleda Freeman, Aleda.Freeman@state.ma.us, 617-626-1193
We can help you figure out how best to use the services, and help you construct your request syntax. To stay informed about changes to the services (anticpated downtime, etc) and to exchange information with other service users we urge you to join the public MassGIS web mapping services Google Group at http://groups.google.com/group/massgis_webservices/. You may also subscribe to any page on this website by RSS (see orange button at very bottom left of pages) to see changes to the page. A good candidate for this would be the What's New With the MassGIS Web Services page.
Who We Are
MassGIS is the Commonwealth's Office of Geographic and Environmental Information.
What We Do
MassGIS provides several OGC compliant XML-based web services for accessing spatial data about Massachusetts. Publicly available datasets include aerial photography, street maps, census data, environmental data and much much more. Much of this data is available for free download via the MassGIS data download page.
If, however, you are simply writing an application and want to use the data in your application, standard XML calls can be made to publicly available web services to fetch maps of interesting areas, query datalayers for relevant information, or validate locations or addresses.
| An Image of Fenway Park Fetched from our WMS |
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This site is a guide to using our OGC web services to:
- Fetch maps from our Web Map Server and display them on your website or in your application
- Perform spatial queries against our Web Feature Server and display the results on your website or in your application
- Build web-based applications which show maps and query them
- Integrate these web-based applications into your website
- Many output formats and almost 4,000 projections are available
In short, this site is a central location for learning how to make on-line maps about Massachusetts.
Getting Started
If you're looking for background information about the MassGIS geospatial web services, haven't heard of the WMS or WFS specifications before, or just want to browse some introductory materials, take a look at our Getting Started page.
| Top Three Getting Started Links…See the Getting Started Page for a Full List |
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| Reasons to use the MassGIS Web Mapping Services |
| Learn about the Web Map Service |
| Learn how to put an interactive map on your web-page |
Advanced Topics
Want to use the MassGIS geospatial web services in new or advanced ways? Learn more in-depth information about the web services on our Advanced Topics page.
| Top Three Advanced Topics Links…See the Advanced Topics Page for a Full List |
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| SLD (Styled Layer Descriptor) - create your own symbolization of MassGIS data or your data |
| Geocoding - (recommendation - use ArcIMS) |
| Common Query Language - use CQL instead of Filter in WMS or WFS queries |
What's New
Quick Links
MassGIS WMS: http://giswebservices.massgis.state.ma.us/geoserver/wms
MassGIS WFS: http://giswebservices.massgis.state.ma.us/geoserver/wfs
MassGIS ESRI ArcIMS: http://maps.massgis.state.ma.us/servlet/com.esri.esrimap.Esrimap?
MassGIS Online Mapping Applications: http://www.mass.gov/mgis/mapping.htm
Glossary of Terms
GIS Web Services Current Status Report – Known Issues, Upcoming Downtime or Upgrades, etc.
