WMS (Web Map Service)
An OGC standard for serving map images over HTTP, often used as raster overlays.
Category: Mapping
Definition (expanded)
WMS returns rendered images (not raw vectors) for a given bounding box and style. It is easy to overlay but can be slower than cached tiles. Many WMS services also support GetFeatureInfo for queries.
Related terms
Bounding Box (BBox)A rectangle that fully contains a geometry, usually represented as [minX, minY, maxX, maxY].Overlay (map overlay)An extra layer drawn on top of a basemap, such as tiles, GeoJSON, or a raster like GeoTIFF.Axis orderWhich axis comes first for coordinates, commonly x then y, but some services and standards use latitude first.