Government architecture (GA) is a relatively young discipline in which concepts are slowly emerging. Often terms and concepts are used in various ways and there is no uniform agreement on these concepts. Further, the relationship between GA, benefits and public value creation is unclear. In this paper we unravel and define GA concepts that are often used by governments. Although GA is used in different ways there are common concepts. GA practice in two different countries, the Netherlands and Norway, indicates that although the Netherlands clearly has more experience with GA than Norway, both countries employ similar concepts. Nevertheless our study confirmed the assumption of conceptual confusion. In both countries GA efforts are concentrated towards guiding design projects and dealing with complexity. We found that the impact of GA is ill understood. We defined central concepts of GA, and propose a conceptual model illustrating the relationships between GA concepts, its use, benefits and public value drivers.