What exactly is GIS? Always a good question and topic of discussion it seems. 

To this day professionals still can’t decide if GIS is a profession, a tool, or a niche area but one thing is for sure, the question it always generates some discussion.  And so a look at some popular/common descriptions of GIS – from GIS.com – A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information. Or perhaps this traditional description from Wikipedia (Which I’m pretty sure comes from the same text book I had in my GIS 101 class – A geographic information system is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data. These are all fine, however, what do real, daily GIS users have to say to define GIS? I asked this recently in our GISuser LinkedIn Group page and the comments are still coming in. A few responses:

• It is a powerful decision-making tool that can be integrated into any organisational setup to make evidence-based decisions (Clement Frimpong)
• an interface to create database evidence to decision making, scenario building and problem solving (Debajit)
• a computerized system consists of computer hardware, computer software, geographic (locational) data, people, and procedures to effectively capture, store, update, process, analyze, and display all forms of geographically referenced information.  (Ayad Mohhamed)
• a Powerful tool that allows to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage and interpret objects of the Earth (Revanth)

Image credit: Matt’s Musings blog