rNews 1: The GeoCoordinates Class

GeoCoordinates
point
circle
elevation
polygon
box
line
Figure 1: Attributes of the GeoCoordinates class.

The GeoCoordinates class is used for expressing geographic metadata about Place objects. To ensure maximum compatability with existing standards for representing geographic metadata, the GeoCoordinates class borrows the majority of its attributes from the existing GeoRSS standard. These attributes include: point, line, polygon, box, circle, and elevation.

The table below enumerates all attributes of the GeoCoordinates class and provides both the expected data type and a definition of each attribute.

AttributeTypeDefinitionExample
point xsd:string A point is a physical location on Earth. A point is expressed as a latitude and longitude separated by a space character. Points should expressed in decimal as laid out in the WGS84 specification. 40.672 -73.983
line xsd:string A line is a point-to-point path consisting of two or more points. A line is expressed as a series of two or more point objects separated by space. 38.92 -94.6442.71 -73.2
polygon xsd:string A polygon is the area enclosed by a point-to-point path for which the starting and ending points are the same. A polygon is expressed as a series of four or more space-delimited points where the first and final points are identical. 40.764161 -73.97283640.768062 -73.98141940.800296 -73.95841640.796918 -73.9494940.764161 -73.972836
box xsd:string A box is the area enclosed by the rectangle formed by two points. The first point is the lower corner, the second point is the upper corner. A box is expressed as two points separated by a space character. 38.920952 -94.64544338.951797 -94.680439
circle xsd:string A circle is the circular region of a specified radius centered at a specified latitude and longitude. A circle is expressed as a pair followed by a radius in meters. 38.920952 -94.645443500
elevation xsd:string The elevation is the height above sea level in meters of a specified point. An elevation attribute must be specified in conjunction with a point attribute. 807.79

 

Applying the GeoCoordinates Class
The GeoCoordinates class is used to add additional context to Place objects. Our sample article contains five such places:
  • Libya
  • France
  • Great Britain
  • United States
  • Turkey
To express these Place objects along with the relevant GeoCoordinateobjects in RDF/Turtle we would write the following: 
            @prefix rdf:  <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#>  .      @prefix rnews: <http://iptc.org/std/rNews/2011-10-07#> .                       <http://data.nytimes.com/66285699086722007041>          a rnews:Place ;        rnews:geoCoordinates        [           a rnews:GeoCoordinates ;          rnews:point "25.0 17.0"        ] ;        rnews:name  "Libya" ;         rnews:featureCode "PCLI".              <http://data.nytimes.com/67127587134490296321>          a rnews:Place ;        rnews:geoCoordinates        [           a rnews:GeoCoordinates ;          rnews:point "46.0 2.0"        ] ;        rnews:name  "France" ;         rnews:featureCode "PCLI".              <http://data.nytimes.com/42273881931420178781>          a rnews:Place ;        rnews:geoCoordinates        [           a rnews:GeoCoordinates ;          rnews:point "54.0 -4.0"        ] ;        rnews:name  "Great Britain" ;         rnews:featureCode "PCLI".               <http://data.nytimes.com/N84789043836346105961>          a rnews:Place ;        rnews:geoCoordinates        [           a rnews:GeoCoordinates ;          rnews:point "39.76 -98.5"        ] ;        rnews:name "United States" ;         rnews:featureCode "PCLI".               <http://data.nytimes.com/55791562732592005121>          a rnews:Place ;        rnews:geoCoordinates        [           a rnews:GeoCoordinates ;          rnews:point "39.0 35.0"        ] ;        rnews:name  "Turkey" ;         rnews:featureCode "PCLI".

 

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