What is GIS (Geographic Information System)?











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What is GIS?

The most advanced database system available today.

GIS stands for Geographic Information System. Such computerized system manages geographically-referenced information by integrating a database and a mapping software, and providing the tools to analyze spatial relationships between events or phenomena.

GIS is an important technology because "Everything Happens Somewhere". Geography (the location of things) and time are often the only common characteristics between apparently eclectic events. GIS integrates information on these events by tracking their locations. For example, in the USA, you can find the average household income in your neighborhood by knowing where you live and querying the US Census GIS database by location. In a similar manner, you can locate known polluted sites close to your neighborhood by querying the US EPA Superfund Sites database geographically. You could also find out in which income-level neighborhoods are Superfund sites predominantly located nationwide!

GIS also provides the tools to analyze spatial relationship between events. For example, it can be used to find the labor pool within a 35-minute drive of a business park. The computer will "drive" 35 minutes away from the business park on existing roads at specified speeds in all directions, establish the area covered and query another database to find out the labor pool.

GIS communicates information efficiently. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a map may be worth a thousand pictures! The amount of information that can be communicated within a single map is tremendous and yet easy to grasp.

These characteristics make GIS the most advanced database system available today. GIS is used by government, businesses and individuals worldwide. It is changing the computer landscape of the nineties the way spreadsheets did in the eighties.

Page last updated: January 30, 2009