The Inspire Directive is a European Union directive that aims to create a European spatial data infrastructure. It establishes common rules and standards for sharing spatial data across public organizations in Europe. The directive requires that member states publish and make available for use and sharing a wide range of spatial data sets related to topics such as cadastre, geography, environment, transportation and other domains. It also requires that metadata and data conformance to certain technical specifications be ensured. The directive is expected to generate economic and social benefits by facilitating the creation of new location-based services and applications and increasing transparency.