Basic GIS File Formats

Raster Formats (pixel based)

• JPEG2000 (.jp2)- compressed image
• MrSid- MultiResolution Seamless Image Database
• IMG- Image
• TIFF- Tagged Image File Format
• ECW- Enhanced Compressed Wavelet
• DRG- Digital Raster Graphic
• BIL- Band Interleaved by Line

Vector Formats (point and line based)

• GML- Geography Markup Language (based in XML)
• Shapefile- ESRI's hybrid
• TIGER- Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing
• VPF- Vector Product Format
• GeoMedia- Microsoft Access based
• MapInfo TAB- MapInfo's hybrid
• ASC II- ESRI Grid file- allows multidimensional arrays

Open Geospacial Consortium(OGC) standards (standards for server sharing)

• WMS- Web Mapping Service- image based sharing
• WFS- Web Feature Service- streaming data sharing
• WPS- Web Processing Service- geoprocessing over the server
• KML- Keyhole Mark up Language- Google's mapping laguage (vector)
• GML- Geograpy Mark up Language- Standard mapping laguage (vector)

source: wikipedia and http://www.opengeospatial.org/