Cognised existence: A service or amenity is a facility, institution, or establishment that provides a function to the public — healthcare, education, dining, retail, emergency response, recreation, or everyday convenience. The same concept is captured differently across datasets: as a business with an industry code, as a map point with an amenity tag, or as a building with a use code.
Question: What services or amenities are available at or near a location?
What is a Service or Amenity?
A service or amenity is not a building (that’s Buildings). It is not the legal business entity behind it (that’s Firms). It is the function provided at a place. A hospital provides healthcare. A school provides education. A restaurant provides dining. A playground provides recreation. The same physical building may house multiple services, and the same service type may appear across very different data sources.
Realisations
Instead of hardcoding implementation schemas here, SPHERE separates semantic meaning from dataset implementation. See the following realisations for how to access this data:
- CVR (CentraleVirksomhedsregister) — By Industry Code
- OpenStreetMap — By Amenity Tag
- BBR (BygningerOgBoliger) — By Building Use Code
Combining Realisations
The power of multi-source realisations: CVR gives you business attributes (opening year, employee count, revenue). OSM gives you direct coordinates and opening hours. BBR gives you physical building characteristics. An agent assembling a complete picture of “healthcare services in Copenhagen” can draw from all three.
| Need | Best Realisation | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Comprehensive business list | CVR | Most complete, authoritative |
| Quick geocoded point map | OSM | Direct geometry, no joins |
| Building characteristics of service facilities | BBR | Physical attributes (area, age, heating) |
| Combined analysis | CVR + OSM + BBR | Full picture via address-based join |
Classical Theme References
| Standard | Theme | Link |
|---|---|---|
| INSPIRE | Utility and Governmental Services | |Utility and Governmental Services |