A geospatial content management system (GeoCMS) is a content management system where objects (users, images, articles, blogs..) can have a latitude, longitude position to be displayed on an online interactive map. In addition the online maps link to informational pages (wiki pages essentially) on the data represented. Some GeoCMS do also allow users to edit spatial data (points, lines, polygons on maps) as part of content objects. Spatial data can be published by GeoCMS as part of their contents or using standardized interfaces such as WMS or WFS.

A GeoCMS can have a map of registered users allowing to build communities geographically, by looking at users location. The help of wiki for describing geographical layers present a way to solve the problem of geographical metadata.

Since the advent of Google Maps and the publication of its API, numerous users have used online maps to illustrate their web pages. Google Maps is in itself not a GeoCMS but a building block for GeoCMS applications. Similarly Mapserver can also be used for creating GeoCMS.

GeoCMS comparison

Django Drupal Midgard Plone Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware WordPress
Ability to store locations Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Ability to edit points, lines and polygons Yes Yes  ?  ?  ?  ?
Number of locations per content item ? Multiple In/about/at See specific plugin 1 1
Maps on content items OpenLayers, OpenStreetMap, Leaflet, Google Maps Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, MapBuilder, OpenLayers ? See specific plugin Mapserver or Google Maps ?
Syndication formats ? GeoRSS, KML, GeoJSON GeoRSS See specific plugin RSS for maps update GeoRSS, KML
Geocoding ? Yes Yes (Yahoo, GeoNames) See specific plugin not yet  ?
User location sources ? Manual, SMS, Plazes, GeoRSS, ICBM, Fire Eagle See specific plugin customized maps
Can utilize spatial database (like PostGIS) Yes Yes in 2.x dev branch of geofield  ?  ?  ?  ?
Geographic Features Styling  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?
License  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?  ?
Required Platforms / Main Languages Django (Python) MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQLite/Oracle_Database PHP, MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQLite Midgard (PHP), MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQLite Plone (Python), ZODB LAMP (PHP) LAMP

References

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