The United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) identified 14 Fundamental Geospatial Data Themes that every national spatial data infrastructure should maintain. These are the most essential datasets for governance, development, and disaster response.
Each theme below is mapped to its location in the SPHERE tree. UN-GGIM themes are broader than INSPIRE (e.g., “Water” combines INSPIRE’s Hydrography + Sea Regions + Oceanographic Features) and explicitly include some themes (Geology and Soils) that bridge two SPHERE domains.
Source: UN-GGIM Fundamental Geospatial Data Themes (2019)
Themes → SPHERE Mapping
| Theme | Primary Sphere | Subsphere(s) | Threads |
|---|---|---|---|
| |Global Geodetic Reference Frame | Socio-Technical | socio_technical_ict_flows | — |
| |Addresses | Socio-Technical | Socio_technical_governance | — |
| |Buildings and Settlements | Socio-Technical | Socio_technical_infrastructure | — |
| |Elevation and Depth | Toposphere | toposphere_topography_bathymetry | Hydrosphere |
| |Functional Areas | Socio-Technical | Socio_technical_governance | — |
| |Geographical Names | Socio-Technical | Socio_technical_governance | — |
| |Geology and Soils | Lithosphere | lithosphere_geology | Pedosphere |
| |Land Cover and Land Use | Socio-Technical | socio_technical_perception_thematics | Toposphere |
| |Land Parcels | Socio-Technical | Socio_technical_governance | — |
| |Physical Infrastructure | Socio-Technical | Socio_technical_infrastructure | — |
| |Population Distribution | Socio-Technical | Socio_technical_socioeconomic | — |
| |Orthoimagery | Toposphere | toposphere_remote_sensed_observations | — |
| |Transport Networks | Socio-Technical | Socio_technical_infrastructure | — |
| |Water | Hydrosphere | hydrosphere_freshwater_surface, hydrosphere_marine, hydrosphere_groundwater | — |
See SPHERE for the protocol definition. See all classifications for the full Rosetta Stone.