WHAT IS GIS?
GIS stands for Geographic
Information System, or software that combines an interactive map
with a relational database, in which one can display layers of
information from multiple data tables using a variety of
representational schemes (e.g. colors, shapes and labels). For a
detailed and colorfully illustrated description of the uses of GIS,
visit this online poster on Geographic Information
Systems from USGS
GIS
for History
"Over the past fifteen years the work of map-loving historians has been
made easier and more exciting by the availability of personal computers
and geographic information system (GIS) software. Beginning with
simple but powerful tools that allowed reasearchers to bring existing
maps within the computer environment for easy reproduction,
transformation, and presentation, or to make maps using computer
cartography, the software and the computers on which it is used have
become more and more sophisticated. It is now possible to devise
dynamic views of past experience in the form of animated series of map
images that can be started and stopped as "time" progresses to show
conditions at any given moment. It is also possible to bring
togather multiple maps in a single image, and to represent and analyze
information as multiple layers in a single map document. These
capabilities could well make map lovers of a new generation of
computer-literate historians, and bring computing expertise to future
generations of map lovers."
-- from Knowles,
Anne Kelly, ed. Past Time,
Past Place:
GIS for History.
Redlands, California: ESRI Press, 2002.
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