Metadata serves a number of purposes, including:
- Unambiguous identification of a product
- Copyright and contact information
- Data currency - ensuring that the correct or most recent version is being used
- Product identification when contacting technical support.
The following metadata sections are included at both product and table level:
- Metadata overview- Including language, character set and metadata standards.
- Contact and distribution information.
- Data description- product name and version.
- Extent- bounding latitude and longitude.
- Resource constraint- Precisely mapping software solutions that can be used with this product.
- Abstract- brief description of the product/table.
- Data lineage- data source, provider and vintage.
- Spatial reference system- projection, ellipsoid and datum.
- Keywords- layers in the product, plus country and national capital.
- Object information- number of points or regions.