- GIS stands for Geographic Information System or Geographic Information Science (depending on whether it refers to a particular database solution or the general disciplinary and technical approach).
Deascription from Wikipedia (snapshot of 2019-10-12):
A geographic information system (GIS) is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present spatial or geographic data. GIS applications are tools that allow users to create interactive queries (user-created searches), analyze spatial information, edit data in maps, and present the results of all these operations. GIS (more commonly GIScience) sometimes refers to geographic information science (GIScience), the science underlying geographic concepts, applications, and systems.
GIS can refer to a number of different technologies, processes, techniques and methods. It is attached to many operations and has many applications related to engineering, planning, management, transport/logistics, insurance, telecommunications, and business. For that reason, GIS and location intelligence applications can be the foundation for many location-enabled services that rely on analysis and visualization.
GIS can relate unrelated information by using location as the key index variable. Locations or extents in the Earth space–time may be recorded as dates/times of occurrence, and x, y, and z coordinates representing, longitude, latitude, and elevation, respectively. All Earth-based spatial–temporal location and extent references should be relatable to one another and ultimately to a "real" physical location or extent. This key characteristic of GIS has begun to open new avenues of scientific inquiry.
Useful tools and resources
- QGIS: A Free and Open Source Geographic Information System - https://www.qgis.org/
- ArcGIS Online: Mapping and analysis: location intelligence for everyone - https://www.arcgis.com/
- GIS, Sunoikisis Digital Classics, Thursday, November 3, 2016 (Leif Isaksen)
- Interpreting geographic data, Sunoikisis Digital Classics, Thursday October 19, 2017 (Chiara Palladino, Tom Elliott & Masoumeh Seydi)
- Geographic Information System: querying geo data, Sunoikisis Digital Classics, Thursday October 25, 2018 (Leonard Bruckner, Adina Puscasu & Chris Donaldson)
- GIS and Geovisualization, Sunoikisis Digital Classics, Thursday Nov 21, 2019 (Chiara Palladino & Rebecca Seifried)