On October 24, 2025, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) officially approved and released the OGC API for Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS). For those in the geospatial ecosystem, this is an important milestone. But what is a DGGS and what does this API standard mean for us?

DGGS which stands for Discrete Global Grid System provides a unique way of defining a geospatial reverence system. It works by tessellating the globe, that means sub-dividing it into a huge number of small grid cells with each having a unique identifier and at different resolutions.

What this new API mean for Everyone

In simple terms, this API standard defines how to access, query and used geospatial data buit on a DGGS (iGeo7, H3, HEALPix etc) in an interporable way, and it just the right tool that the industry has been waiting for. In essence, it can be integrated and deployed as Web API to enable user query specific data for a chosen area and at different resolutions based any of the existing DGGRS (Discrete Global Grid Reference System).

Our Commitment to DGGS

This is a great new for us at Geolynx, as it is a the core of what we are building.

Geolynx is a University of Tartu spin-off company, and our focus is on geospatial technologies and data analysis. We believe that DGGS offers a reliable way of performing spatial analysis and is the future of spatial reference systems. That is why apart from using these standards, we are also actively contributing to them.

Geolynx is an active member of the OGC, and we contribute to the DGGS and Geospatial indicator reporting working groups. We are also participating in the OGC AI-DGGS Pilot program, exploring ways to build support for DGGS.

Expanding on this, we are developing our implementation of the OGC DGGS API. When deployed, this platform and our APIs will give our users access to a rich library of geospatial datasets at different resolutions, time and area of interest. This will enable businesses and researchers to carry out spatial analysis with speed and simplicity.

The release of the OGC API standards for DGGS is an implement step to allow user interact with DGGS-enabled datasets and we are thrilled to shared in this development.

You can learn more about the release on the DGGS OGC API webpage