Loading data from OGC web services

More and more data providers offer access to their datasets via OGC-compliant web services such as Web Map Services (WMS), Web Coverage Services (WCS), or Web Feature Services (WFS). QGIS supports these services out of the box.

Note

If you want to learn more about the different OGC web services available, visit http://live.osgeo.org/en/standards/standards.html for an overview.

You can load WMS layers by going to Layer | Add WMS/WMTS Layer, clicking on the Add WMS/WMTS Layer button, or pressing Ctrl + Shift + W. If you know a WMS server, you can connect to it by clicking on New and filling in a name and the URL. All other fields are optional. Don't worry if you don't know of any WMS servers, because you can simply click on the Add default servers button to get access information about servers whose administrators collaborate with the QGIS project. One of these servers is called Lizardtech server. Select Lizardtech server or any of the other servers...