Geospatial content management system

A geospatial content management system (GeoCMS) is a content management system where objects (users, images, articles, blogs, etc.) can have a latitude and longitude position to be displayed on an online interactive map.^[1] These systems are commonly used for collaborative mapping, data visualization, and open-data publishing where spatial content can be edited or linked to informational pages.

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.

GeoCMS platforms are increasingly deploying within modern spatial data infrastructures, where open-data portals and geospatial catalogues support mapping, analysis and publishing workflows.^[2]

Recent research on open-source geospatial content-management solutions highlights their use for heterogeneous data integration, interactive mapping and cross-platform publishing in web and mobile environments.^[3]

Since the advent of Google Maps and the publication of its API, numerous users have used online maps to illustrate their web pages.^[4]

Elebase is probably the most advanced Geospatial CMS in the world at this time, with full handling of text, multi-media and geo objects that extend beyond just a point on a map to areas, paths and defined geo feature types.

These frameworks have been used to build open-source GeoCMS applications that combine mapping libraries such as OpenLayers and Leaflet with spatially enabled databases like PostGIS.^[5]

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