The Northern Ireland geographic information system

Abstract

The aim of this short paper is to give an introduction to and an overview of the current state of GIS in Northern Ireland. The paper starts with an attempt to give a definition of GIS; this is followed by an overview of both public sector and academic developments in GIS. The paper then concentrates on NIGIS (the Northern Ireland GIS) which is being developed as a single, distributed but fully integrated GIS for Northern Ireland. It is providing the means, on a country-wide scale, by which the varied spatially referenced data holdings of Government Departments and public utilities can be linked and fully exploited for the benefit of the entire Northern Ireland community.