Norge digitalt
Norge digitalt is the national partnership for sharing geographic information in Norway. It links municipalities, state agencies and other public bodies in a shared infrastructure where map layers, property data and thematic data are made available to all parties. When a kommune, a developer or a service such as Placepoint can show matrikkel, zoning plans, flood zones and elevation data together, the Norge digitalt partnership is the reason the data exists and can be retrieved in a standardised way.
The partnership is coordinated by Kartverket and is built on each data owner managing and sharing its own data, for example Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat (NVE) for flooding and landslides, Miljødirektoratet for nature, or the individual kommune for land use plans, while the partnership provides standards, agreements and access. The technical entry point is the geodata portal Geonorge, where datasets are described with metadata and made available as download files or as WMS and WFS services. Data is structured to the SOSI standard, so that a dataset means the same thing no matter who produced it.
The basic idea is that public geodata should be collected once and used many times. Instead of every agency producing its own maps, the parties share a common data foundation such as FKB (Felles kartdatabase), the matrikkel and elevation data, and build their own solutions on top of it. This gives better data quality, less duplicated work and a shared reference for the whole public sector. For land use planning, building applications and property development, it means the same authoritative data is available to everyone, from the case officer in the kommune to the private adviser.
For a property professional, Norge digitalt is rarely something you deal with directly, but it explains why Norwegian public map data is so easy to access and so consistent compared with many other countries. Tools such as ArcGIS and other GIS platforms from Esri and other suppliers connect to the same services, and specialist solutions draw on them. When data is updated at a data owner, the change eventually flows through to all the services built on Norge digitalt.
The partnership is formalised through agreements between the parties, where each party both contributes its own data and gains access to the data of others. The model comes from a political goal of a national geographic infrastructure, and is linked to the European INSPIRE directive on sharing public geodata. For the user, the practical result is that matrikkel, plans and thematic data from different agencies can be shown together in the same map, without each service having to collect the data again.
In Placepoint, much of the map foundation comes from sources that are part of Norge digitalt: the matrikkel, FKB, plan registers and thematic data from the public agencies, brought together in one solution alongside other data sources.
From Placepoint's dictionary: Norge digitalt
More information: Kartverket: Norge digitalt, Geonorge: national geodata portal, Geonorge: Norge digitalt
English: Norway Digital (Norge digitalt; the national partnership for sharing public geographic data).
Frequently asked questions
What is Norge digitalt?
Norge digitalt is the national partnership for sharing geographic information, where municipalities and state agencies make map layers, property data and thematic data available in a shared infrastructure, coordinated by Kartverket.
How do I get access to the data?
Through the geodata portal Geonorge, where datasets are described with metadata and offered as downloads or as WMS and WFS services, structured to the SOSI standard.
What is the basic idea behind Norge digitalt?
That public geodata is collected once and used many times. Each data owner manages its own data, while the partnership provides standards and access, so that everyone builds on a common data foundation such as FKB and the matrikkel.
Who takes part in the partnership?
Kartverket coordinates, while data owners such as NVE, Miljødirektoratet, Statens vegvesen and the individual kommune each manage and share their own datasets.
What does Norge digitalt have to do with Placepoint?
Much of the map foundation in Placepoint, such as matrikkel, FKB and plan registers, comes from sources that are part of Norge digitalt, brought together in one solution.