Mapping Hacks » public geodata. Geographic Information Systems Help Scholars See History - NYTimes.com. North American Religion Atlas. Geographic information system. A geographic information system (GIS) is a computer system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of spatial or geographical data. The acronym GIS is sometimes used for geographical information science or geospatial information studies to refer to the academic discipline or career of working with geographic information systems and is a large domain within the broader academic discipline of Geoinformatics.[1] What goes beyond a GIS is a spatial data infrastructure, a concept that has no such restrictive boundaries.
In a general sense, the term describes any information system that integrates, stores, edits, analyzes, shares, and displays geographic information. GIS is a broad term that can refer to a number of different technologies, processes, and methods. History of development[edit] Computer hardware development spurred by nuclear weapon research led to general-purpose computer "mapping" applications by the early 1960s.[8] In 1964 Howard T. GIS.com | What is GIS? This is probably the most asked question posed to those in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) field and is probably the hardest to answer in a succinct and clear manner. GIS is a technological field that incorporates geographical features with tabular data in order to map, analyze, and assess real-world problems.
The key word to this technology is Geography – this means that some portion of the data is spatial. In other words, data that is in some way referenced to locations on the earth. Coupled with this data is usually tabular data known as attribute data. Attribute data can be generally defined as additional information about each of the spatial features. An example of this would be schools. The actual location of the schools is the spatial data. GIS operates on many levels. GIS Versus Geospatial There is an increasing trend to use the term geospatial instead of GIS. Other quotes to answer “What is GIS?” Keep reading: 1 2 3 - , Next page >>. Like this article? GIS Software. FreeGIS.org.