JTS is primarily intended to be used as a core component of vector-based geomatics software such as geographical information systems.

[3] JTS implements the geometry model and API defined in the OpenGIS Consortium Simple Features Specification for SQL.

JTS provides the following functionality: Geometry classes support modelling points, linestrings, polygons, and collections.

Funding for the initial work on JTS was obtained in the Fall 2000 from GeoConnections and the Government of British Columbia, based on a proposal put forward by Mark Sondheim and David Skea.

It is a foundation component in a software ecosystem of native, compiled executable binaries on Linux, Mac and Windows platforms.