Yesterday in the late afternoon the Swiss Federal Office of Topography (Swisstopo) declared (German) the exposure of maps via web service and opening up of their API (press release also only in German) through Swisstopo web access (brief description in English) with the following two options:
- WMTS option (Web Map Tile Service):
This service lets you display current geodata (aerial imagery at 25 and 50 cm resolution, national maps at all scales and historic Dufour and Siegfried maps; see list) from Swisstopo. Up to a certain amount of served data, the service is free. If necessary, the quota can be enlarged by paying a fee. More details in English can be gleaned from the product sheet. - API option called GeoAdmin:
For easier integration of maps into your website, additional functionality and more data. Using the API requires you to first sign up with Swisstopo. There is extensive documentation of the API as well as a Google Group.
This is certainly thrilling and revolutionary for anybody working with Swiss geodata. I would say, nobody would have predicted this move some years ago.
Cool! But now the Swiss Bundesamt für Statistik just needs to provide all it’s data about cantons in one page, so that citizens could easily find that spatial data and make maps with it.
They sometimes even made maps themselves:
Traffic accidents per canton: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/11/06/blank/key/01/aktuel.html
Hi Andreas
Agreed! I too think that BFS is not using ideal tools and technology to disseminate their data and also that they don’t disseminate enough data for free.
Consider joining the activities by http://www.makeopendata.ch who are trying to get Open Government data an issue in Switzerland. There will be a hack day towards end of march, the topic of which (somewhat funny seeing that you posted a link to traffic accident data) will be traffic.
More specifically to your problem: There is for example BADAC (http://www.badac.ch) which collects data about cantons. Though I don’t know how much of the data they make available and how. Other than that, big Swiss banks usually look at canton data also, of course often with an economic and taxes focus. Maybe you can find something interesting on that trail.
Anyway, hth.