What is GIS?

A GIS is a computer system capable of capturing, storing, analyzing, and displaying geographically referenced information; that is, data identified according to location.

The key word to this technology is Geography - this usually means that the data (or at least some proportion 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 data known as attribute data. Attribute data generally defined as additional information, which can then be tied to spatial data. An example of this would be schools. The actual location of the schools is the spatial data. Additional data such as the school name, level of education taught, school capacity would make up the attribute data. It is the partnership of these two data types that enables GIS to be such an effective problem solving tool.

GIS operates on many levels. On the most basic level, GIS is used as computer cartography, i.e. mapping. The real power in GIS is through using spatial and statistical methods to analyse attribute and geographic information. The end result of the analysis can be derivative information, interpolated information or prioritised information.