MassGIS has fully implemented a Web Mapping Service, sponsored by the Commonwealth's Information Technology Division (ITD), which provides online GIS (Geographic Information System) functionality.

For those interested in developing web-based mapping applications, or adding mapping capabilities to an existing online applicataion, the following link to the NEW webservices wiki provides a general overview and technical guidance for prospective users of the GIS shared Web Service: http://lyceum.massgis.state.ma.us

Web mapping services use policy:
The webservices are not meant for any kind of batch processing. They are meant to support applications that need on-the-fly data processing. In other words, someone enters a lat/long in a web form or clicks a web map and you need to figure out which town it's in, or you need to figure out the XY of an address. You simply don't know ahead of time. If you have a table of addresses on your hard drive that you want to geocode or a table of lat/long that you wish to determine the town for please use GIS desktop software. Your job will run faster and you'll keep the traffic off the webservices. The webservices just can't handle unlimited traffic so we have to prioritize. You don't necessarily need to buy GIS desktop software, there are several free open source applications out there (uDig, MapWindow) that can probably get the job done. If you can't figure out how to do the processing that you need to do let us know and we'll work something out.

Last Updated 9/2/2009
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