What is GIS?

Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer system used for storing, manipulating, maintaining, analyzing, and displaying geographic data.

For York County Government, GIS enables a more efficient delivery of services to the taxpayers.   Through GIS Online, many databases provide valuable information over the internet and saves both the county and tax-payer resources delivering and receiving the information.

Visit this link for the online GIS Self Learning Tool hosted by the University of Melbourne Department of Geomatics.

Many schools are not teaching geography, as a result kids do not know where Japan or India or even the Pacific Ocean is on the map. MyWonderfulWorld.org is an excellent resource for geography awareness and is sponsored by the National Geographic Society.

A Geographic Information System is an organized collection of computer hardware, software, geographic data, personnel, and procedures designed to efficiently capture, store, hold, update, manage, manipulate, analyze, and display all forms of spatially referenced data for solving operational, management, and planning problems, and used to describe a place(s) of location in the County.

In its simpler form, a GIS is an electronic map used to display data based on its location; in its more complex form, it becomes a powerful analytical tool with millions of pieces of data that are related geographically and can be displayed in a format that allows the user to make the inter-relationships between that data visually understandable.

GIS allows you to:

Think about a place or feature... Ask questions about it ... Explore patterns that appear ... Enhance the data or modify the analysis ... Make a map or report ...

GIS is not "just mapping".

It is, instead, the ability to build maps "on the fly," showing what you want, and have data for, in the way you define. The software draws geographic features (or "where things are") and sets of attributes (or "what things are like"), processed according to rules you establish.
GIS is used to explore relationships between features distributed unevenly over space. Here's an example: Imagine you have a set of map transparencies about an area, one transparency for each feature type (land use, elevation, census, utilities, transportation corridors, soil types, etc.). You can overlay your transparencies, zoom to the desired scale, and ask questions that display relationships across the layers.

Examples of situations where GIS can help:

Does it make sense to put a fire station here or there?
Should school district boundaries go here or there?
Do we expand the existing airport here or build a new one there?
Will there be enough schools for students here in 10 years?
Which pockets of endangered environment should we protect?
What is the impact of released waste on local health patterns?
Are we adequately prepared to service the local and surrounding population in the event of various possible disasters?

GIS is a powerful tool that can aid us in making better decisions pertaining to our world.