GeoPackage overview

OS MasterMap Water Network Layer is supplied as a single GeoPackage for the whole of Great Britain. GeoPackage (*.gpkg) is an open, non-proprietary, platform-independent, standards-based data format for geographic information systems (GIS), as defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). It is designed to be a lightweight format that can contain large amounts of varied and complex data in a single, easy-to-distribute and ready-to-use file. GeoPackage is natively supported by numerous software applications.

GeoPackage offers users the following benefits:

The single file is easy to transfer and offers the end-user a rich experience.
Attribute names are not limited in length, making the format user-friendly.
The file size limit is very large at 140TB (A file size limit might be imposed by the file system to which the file is written).
It supports raster, vector and database formats, making it a highly versatile solution.
It is an OGC standard.
In most cases, it is a plug-and-play format.

For information on how to open, use and understand a GeoPackage dataset, please refer to our ‘Getting Started with GeoPackage’ guide. Further detailed information on GeoPackage can be taken from the GeoPackage website.

Attribute naming differences between GML and GeoPackage formats

The naming of attributes between GeoPackage and the Geography Markup Language (GML) file is very similar as GeoPackage files are not limited in the number of characters for an attribute name. Therefore, the tables included here map the GML attribute name to the attribute name in the GeoPackage files.

The GML contains an attribute which describes the geometry of the feature; this is not applicable for a GeoPackage file as they are separated by their geometry.

Please note that the use of an asterisk symbol (*) in the following tables indicates that a particular attribute is not mapped to GML.

WatercourseLink

GML attribute

GeoPackage attribute

fid

gml_id

toid

identifier

centrelinegeometry

geometry

fictitious

startNode

start_node

endNode

end_node

localId

local_id

versionId

version_id

beginLifespanVersion

begin_lifespan_version

reasonForChange

reason_for_change

form

level

provenance

flowDirection

flow_direction

primacy

watercourseNumber

watercourse_number

watercourseName

watercourse_name

watercourseNameLang

watercourse_name_lang

watercourseNameAlternative

watercourse_name_alternative

watercourseNameAlternativeLang

watercourse_name_alternative_lang

localName

local_name

localNameLang

local_name_lang

localNameAlternative

local_name_alternative

localNameAlternativeLang

local_name_alternative_lang

catchmentName

catchment_name

catchmentID

catchment_id

permanence

managedNavigation

managed_navigation

length

length_uom

gradient

width

width_uom

levelOfDetail

level_of_detail

HydroNode