BGS Geology 50K WMS

BGS Technologies — Web map services

The 1:50 000-scale geological maps for England, Wales and Scotland are available digitally as part of the digital geological map of Great Britain dataset (BGS Geology 50K) and have been made available here to view as a WMS service.

Layers for bedrock, superficial deposits, artificial ground, mass movement and geological linear features are included in the service.

This service is also included in the OneGeology project’s data portal.

Service address

Enter this address into your WMS client: https://map.bgs.ac.uk/arcgis/services/BGS_Detailed_Geology/MapServer/WMSServer?

The service supports the British National Grid and lat/long WGS84 coordinate systems and the data is visible when zoomed in between 1:100 000 and 1:25 000 scale.

Example WMS requests

WMS 1.3.0 GetCapabilities request View
WMS 1.1.1 GetCapabilities request View
WMS 1.3.0 GetMap request against bedrock in British National Grid (BNG) View
WMS 1.3.0 GetMap request against superficial in Lat/Long WGS84 (WGS84) View
WMS 1.1.1 GetMap request against artificial ground in BNG View
WMS 1.1.1 GetMap request against mass movement in WGS84 View
WMS 1.3.0 GetFeatureInfo request against bedrock in WGS84 returning html View
WMS 1.3.0 GetFeatureInfo request against bedrock in WGS84 returning xml text View
WMS 1.1.1 GetFeatureInfo request against superficial in BNG returning plain text View
WMS 1.1.1 GetFeatureInfo request against superficial in BNG returning WMS Capabilities XML View

Can’t use the WMS?

Try the Geology of Britain viewer if you are unable to use a WMS.

Terms of use

This data is delivered under the terms of the Open Government Licence, subject to the following acknowledgement accompanying the reproduced BGS materials: ‘Contains British Geological Survey materials © UKRI [year]’. Contact us if you create something new and innovative that could benefit others.

The BGS provides no warranty as to the quality, accuracy or completeness of this free map data or the medium on which it is supplied. This includes any warranty as to the continued provision of material or that the material taken from this site is compatible with your computer system and/or any other data with which the material is to be used.

Please be aware that the BGS may make changes to this service. This will include, but is not limited to, the level of attribution seen for each type of geology and changes to zoom thresholds.

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