LADM is a international standard for the land administration domain. It will stimulate the development of software applications and will accelerate the implementation of proper land administration systems that will support sustainable development. The LADM covers basic information-related components of land administration (including those over water and land, and elements above and below the surface of the earth); The standard provides an abstract, conceptual model with three packages related to: - parties (people and organizations); - basic administrative units, rights, responsibilities, and restrictions (ownership rights); - spatial units (parcels, and the legal space of buildings and utility networks); with sub packages for spatial sources (surveying), and spatial representations (geometry and topology). This paper summarizes the motivation, requirements and goals for developing LADM. Further, the standard itself is described, including the development process and potential future maintenance. Despite being a very young standard, ‘born’ on 1 December 2012, it is already possible to observe some of the impact of LADM and some examples of this are given in the paper.