Research Guides: GIS: Geographic Information Systems: Home

What is GIS and what is it used for?

A Geographic Information System (GIS) "integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information" (ESRI). GIS also stands for Geographic Information Science because it is a large field incorporating many avenues of research.

Some example applications for GIS include:

social workers mapping out food deserts in cities
glaciologists using satellite images over time to study glacier movement
sociologists examining the community changes based on distributions of race, religion, ethnicity, etc. in an area
disaster response personnel planning emergency routing on road networks

Best Bets

QGIS
Open source GIS system. Create, edit, visualise, analyse and publish geospatial information on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD (Android coming soon).
OpenStreetMap
View, edit and use geographical data.
GIS Dictionary
Free web-based resource from Esri that contains succinct definitions to geographic information systems (GIS) terms related to analysis, GIS modeling and web-based GIS, cartography, Esri software, and more.
Esri
Tools to find, create, and share maps. Products include ArcGIS.

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by Auraria Library Last Updated Feb 3, 2025 2991 views this year