Keyhole Markup Language (
KML) is an
XML notation for expressing geographic annotation and visualization within
Internet-based, two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional
Earth browsers. KML was developed for use with
Google Earth, which was originally named Keyhole Earth Viewer. It was created by
Keyhole, Inc, which was acquired by
Google in 2004. KML became an international standard of the
Open Geospatial Consortium in 2008. Google Earth was the first program able to view and graphically edit KML files. Other projects such as
Marble have also started to develop KML support.