A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer system capable of assembling, storing, mapping, modeling, manipulating, querying, analyzing, and displaying geographically referenced information (i.e., data that are identified according to their locations). Some practitioners expand the definition of GIS to include the personnel involved, the data that are entered into the system, and the uses, decisions, and interpretations that are made possible by the system. A GIS can be used for scientific investigations, resource management, and planning. The development of GIS was made possible from innovations in many different disciplines, including geography, cartography, remote sensing, surveying, civil engineering, statistics, computer science, operations research, artificial intelligence, and demography.

Even early man used GIS-type systems. Thirty-five thousand years ago Cro-Magnon hunters in Lascaux, France, drew pictures of the animals they hunted. Along with the animal drawings were track lines that are thought to show migration...