1. OGD Handbook
  2. Identify

What is Open Government Data (OGD)?

Open Government Data is data from the public administration that is made available for secondary use by anyone interested, free of charge and ideally in machine-readable form. The Swiss OGD portal opendata.swiss contains a wide range of datasets including communal boundaries in Switzerland, population statistics, current weather data, historical documents and a directory of Swiss literature. The data are often made available as complete datasets which can be reused or combined by users to create applications and visualizations that reveal new connections between existing data.

Many data are already available free of charge, but are not identified as OGD. Such data are especially suitable for publication on opendata.swiss, as they can be linked on the portal without much additional effort being required.

Further information on OGD can be found on the following sites:

  • OGD Strategy for Switzerland 2014-2018 defines objectives and measures for implementing OGD at the federal level. The strategy also forms the basis for cooperation with cantons and communes.

  • Detailed information on OGD is offered by the internationally recognized Open Knowledge International. The Foundation’s Swiss section is the Opendata.ch association, which organizes events for users and those interested in OGD and represents the OGD community.

Benefit from existing knowledge

Many organizations already publish data as OGD. You can benefit from their experience or even work with them. The Federal Archives will be happy to assist you. Contact us.

Be sure to consult potential data users, such as journalists, programmers or Opendata.ch, at an early stage. In this way you can find out which datasets are most in demand.