The Federal Geoportal in 2025: Geodata became part of everyday digital infrastructure
Over the past years, the federal geoportal has evolved into a key digital infrastructure for geospatial data. The year 2025 clearly shows that the importance of data use by external applications will continue to grow in the coming years.
Map viewer remains the popular tool
Although mobile apps play a significant role in shaping our digital lives, more people than ever used the map.geo.admin.ch website in 2025. Compared with the previous year, the map viewer recorded more than a 17% increase in usage.
Until now, the use of the map viewer was primarily measured by the number of visits. Starting this year, we are introducing a new statistical index, namely user activity. This will help us to better understand the intensity and diversity of the portal's use.
A new indicator is therefore coming into focus: the number of requests (hits). The figures presented refer to the period from 2022 to the present and officially replace the previous statistics of visits.
The trend is clear: whether for engineers, architects, programmers or planners – but also hikers and ski tourers – easy digital access to official geodata has become increasingly important.
This confirms that map.geo.admin.ch is a vital piece of digital infrastructure for the public administration, businesses, the scientific community and the general public.
External apps shape the development
A key driver of development is the use by external web and app providers who integrate geodata into their own applications through geoservices. Web services continue to experience steady growth, whether it's the ever-popular WM(T)S visualisation services, which increased in usage by more than 25% within a single year, or the gaining-in-popularity Vector Tiles.
Vector Tiles provide simplified, lightweight map views and are specifically optimized for mobile devices. They form the basis for applications such as the swisstopo app. This corresponds to the needs of users who increasingly access geodata while on the go.
High Quality and Availability
As infrastructure usage grows, the challenges facing the Coordination, Geo-Information and Services (COGIS) team also increase.
In the digital era, service quality and stable operations have the highest priority. In 2025, the availability of the geoportal reached 99.81%. Continuous monitoring enabled disruptions to be identified and resolved quickly.
This demonstrates COGIS’ capability and readiness to restore critical infrastructure operations rapidly, even during crisis situations.
Data accuracy as a joint effort
Not only usage but also the data offering continues to evolve. The responsible specialist units within federal offices ensure that datasets remain up to date. In 2025, 570 datasets were actively updated or modified – the highest number of updates and upgrades ever within a single year. One quarter of all datasets are maintained fully automatically.
The offering was expanded with 71 new datasets, bringing the total to 988 sets. Particularly notable this year (selection):
- Integration of 14 Open Government Data themes from the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss;
- Drought index, drought warning map and satellite data on drought, developed in cooperation between the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), MeteoSwiss and the Federal Office of Topography swisstopo;
- New winter hiking and snowshoe routes from the Federal Roads Office (FEDRO), developed with the cantons;
- New air pollution data from FOEN available as Journey through time;
- Numerous new geological datasets from swisstopo.
Focus on User usability
Federal geodata are now used continuously – reliable, up to date, and increasingly embedded in mobile apps and professional applications. With the further development towards SWISSGEO, professional and occasional users will gain centralized access to federal and cantonal data. Beginners will also benefit from a more intuitive and simplified interface.