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GIS > What is GIS? What is GIS?

A Geographic Information System is a collection of tools to build, maintain, and use electronic maps and associated databases.

What does GIS do?

 

It locates:

  • Assets, (water and sewer pipes)
  • Areas, (land use)
  • Incidents, (crime statistics)
  • Characteristics (disease mortality rates)

GIS allows questions to be asked from the map side or from the database side.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Questions can be asked by either side because the map graphics and database records are linked via a unique number.

    • For example, a parcel of land can be a map feature which carries a unique parcel number that is also carried within the database record. The GIS keeps track of this relationship allowing a user to click on the map to get the data or click on the record to find the parcel on the map.

It allows questions to be framed geographically

 

GIS is a way of organizing database records by tying them to geographically synchronized slices of the world so that “where” questions can be asked and answered.