What is GIS?

The most common definition of GIS is geographic information systems. It is comprised of a full software and hardware system that can capture geographic data and information via cameras, store it via a database, manipulate it via software, analyze it via statistical and visualization tools, and manage and present spatial or geographic data. There are other well-known defination for GIS, such as geographic information science, although that has fallen out of general use as it refers to the academic discipline that studies geographic information systems. It is not commonly used for the definition of GIS, because it is a large domain within the much broader academic discipline of geoinformatics.

This essentially boils down to the ability to describe any information system that can combine, keep for future usage, manage, examine, distribute, and manifest geographic information. In essence, you can create tools that allow for users or other tools to create two-way flows of informational queries, examine spatial data, manipulate and inspect map data, and showcase the results of all of these operations in either visual or data form.

There are many tools and a plethora of different applications related to the engineering, arrangement, administration, logistics, insurance, transport, telecommunications, and business of GIS, and due to all this, GIS and location intelligence applications are the foundations for many location-enabled services such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing Maps, Pokémon Go, and many more.