A geographic information system is information that is what?

Answer 1

Geographic information is information that has some spatial component, usually in relation to the earth. The information is stored in spatial co-ordinates and can be one of a variety of geometries, such as a single point, a line of points or an enclosed line of points such as a polygon.

A geographic information system can support spatially referenced information. Many kinds of information can have a spatial component. A geographic information system is capable of understanding the spatial nature of the information and provides functionality that supports it.

For example, a dataset of national parks in a non-geographic system has no awareness of the geographical position of the park. In a geogrpahical information system the geometry of the park and its spatial location on the earth can be described. With this kind of information the parks can be queried and compared based on geographic properties, such as:

• the distance between parks
• the boundary length or area of the park
• spatial querying, for instance parks that are within a bounding area
• spatial comparison, what's the biggest park? What is the nearest park to some point?

Geographic information systems can often also visualise geographic data: for instance, Google Maps can display the geometry of road information.