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Asked: 2026-06-14T10:37:55+00:00

Sorry in advance if this is a noob question. All kml files start with

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Sorry in advance if this is a noob question.

All kml files start with roughly the same two lines:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">

In the second line there is a reference to a web address which contains the schema for kml.

  1. Am i to understand that this is contacted every time a kml file is
    read ?
  2. Secondly, is it possible (and how) to not have to contact
    this (and other) addresses ?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The xmlns reference in a KML file only defines the XML namespace which happens to be associated with an XML Schema that defines that namespace.

    Google Earth or Google Maps do NOT download the KML schema every time a KML file is accessed. In fact, it won’t ever download the XML schema. The namespace just tells GE how to handle the file.

    It just so happens that the Namespace URI for KML is a URL that redirects to the appropriate XML Schema.

    In fact the complete schema reference for KML would look like this:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2
     http://schemas.opengis.net/kml/2.2.0/ogckml22.xsd">
...
</kml>

    A description of XML namespaces can be found here:
    http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/#sec-namespaces

    On a related note the standard icons you can use for your KML placemarks (e.g. http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/airports.png) are likewise never downloaded by the Google Earth client. Those images are part of the installed Google Earth application from which Google Earth maps URLs to the local image file.

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