Have you ever wanted to create your own maps, or integrate and visualize spatial datasets to examine changes in trends between locations and over time? Follow along with these training tutorials on QGIS, an open source geographic information system (GIS) and learn key concepts, procedures and skills for performing common GIS tasks – such as creating maps, as well as joining, overlaying and visualizing spatial datasets. These tutorials are geared towards new GIS users. We’ll start with foundational concepts, and build towards more advanced topics throughout – demonstrating how with a few relatively easy steps you can get quite a lot out of GIS. You can then extend these skills to datasets of thematic relevance to you in addressing tasks faced in your day-to-day work.

At NASA they use Geographic Information systems to provide:maps and powerful capabilities to visualise, analyse and interact with big dataFind out more about how they do this in this ArcGIS StoryMap created by NASA in 2020. This StoryMap includes a section on where you can find NASA data.

This dataset contains locations and attributes of University and College, created as part of the DC Geographic Information System (DC GIS) for the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) and participating D.C. government agencies. Information provided by OCTO, EMA, and other sources identified as University Areas and DC GIS staff geo-processed the data. This layer does not represent university areas contained in the campus plans from the DC Office of Zoning.

This Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project has developed, implemented, and evaluated a series of innovative Socio-Environmental Science Investigations (SESI) using a geospatial curriculum approach. It is targeted for economically disadvantaged 9th grade high school students in Allentown, PA, and involves hands-on geospatial technology to help develop STEM-related skills. SESI focuses on societal issues related to environmental science. These issues are multi-disciplinary, involve decision-making that is based on the analysis of merged scientific and sociological data, and have direct implications for the social agency and equity milieu faced by these and other school students. This project employed a design partnership between Lehigh University natural science, social science, and education professors, high school science and social studies teachers, and STEM professionals in the local community to develop geospatial investigations with Web-based Geographic Information Systems (GIS). These were designed to provide students with geospatial skills, career awareness, and motivation to pursue appropriate education pathways for STEM-related occupations, in addition to building a more geographically and scientifically literate citizenry. The learning activities provide opportunities for students to collaborate, seek evidence, problem-solve, master technology, develop geospatial thinking and reasoning skills, and practice communication skills that are essential for the STEM workplace and beyond. Despite the accelerating growth in geospatial industries and congruence across STEM, few school-based programs integrate geospatial technology within their curricula, and even fewer are designed to promote interest and aspiration in the STEM-related occupations that will maintain American prominence in science and technology. The SESI project is based on a transformative curriculum approach for geospatial learning using Web GIS to develop STEM-related skills and promote STEM-related career interest in students who are traditionally underrepresented in STEM-related fields. This project attends to a significant challenge in STEM education: the recognized deficiency in quality locally-based and relevant high school curriculum for under-represented students that focuses on local social issues related to the environment. Environmental issues have great societal relevance, and because many environmental problems have a disproportionate impact on underrepresented and disadvantaged groups, they provide a compelling subject of study for students from these groups in developing STEM-related skills. Once piloted in the relatively challenging environment of an urban school with many unengaged learners, the results will be readily transferable to any school district to enhance geospatial reasoning skills nationally.

Geographic Information System (GIS) Software Market Outlook

According to our latest research, the global Geographic Information System (GIS) Software market size reached USD 11.6 billion in 2024, reflecting a robust demand for spatial data analytics and location-based services across various industries. The market is experiencing a significant growth trajectory, driven by a CAGR of 12.4% from 2025 to 2033. By the end of 2033, the GIS Software market is forecasted to attain a value of USD 33.5 billion. This remarkable expansion is primarily attributed to the integration of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT, and cloud computing, which are enhancing the capabilities and accessibility of GIS platforms.

One of the major growth factors propelling the GIS Software market is the increasing adoption of location-based services across urban planning, transportation, and utilities management. Governments and private organizations are leveraging GIS solutions to optimize infrastructure development, streamline resource allocation, and improve emergency response times. The proliferation of smart city initiatives worldwide has further fueled the demand for GIS tools, as urban planners and municipal authorities require accurate spatial data for effective decision-making. Additionally, the evolution of 3D GIS and real-time mapping technologies is enabling more sophisticated modeling and simulation, expanding the scope of GIS applications beyond traditional mapping to include predictive analytics and scenario planning.

Another significant driver for the GIS Software market is the rapid digitization of industries such as agriculture, mining, and oil & gas. Precision agriculture, for example, relies heavily on GIS platforms to monitor crop health, manage irrigation, and enhance yield forecasting. Similarly, the mining sector uses GIS for exploration, environmental impact assessment, and asset management. The integration of remote sensing data with GIS software is providing stakeholders with actionable insights, leading to higher efficiency and reduced operational risks. Furthermore, the growing emphasis on environmental sustainability and regulatory compliance is prompting organizations to invest in advanced GIS solutions for monitoring land use, tracking deforestation, and managing natural resources.

The expanding use of cloud-based GIS solutions is also a key factor driving market growth. Cloud deployment offers scalability, cost-effectiveness, and remote accessibility, making GIS tools more accessible to small and medium enterprises as well as large organizations. The cloud model supports real-time data sharing and collaboration, which is particularly valuable for disaster management and emergency response teams. As organizations increasingly prioritize digital transformation, the demand for cloud-native GIS platforms is expected to rise, supported by advancements in data security, interoperability, and integration with other enterprise systems.

Regionally, North America remains the largest market for GIS Software, accounting for a significant share of global revenues. This leadership is underpinned by substantial investments in smart infrastructure, advanced transportation systems, and environmental monitoring programs. The Asia Pacific region, however, is witnessing the fastest growth, driven by rapid urbanization, government-led digital initiatives, and the expansion of the utility and agriculture sectors. Europe continues to demonstrate steady adoption, particularly in environmental management and urban planning, while Latin America and the Middle East & Africa are emerging as promising markets due to increasing investments in infrastructure and resource management.

Component Analysis

The GIS Software market is segmented by component into Software and Services, each playing a pivotal role in the overall value chain. The software segment includes comprehensive GIS platforms, spatial analytics tools, and specialized applications

The data provides a summary of the state of development practice for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software (as of August 2017). The summary is based on grading a set of 30 GIS products using a template of 56 questions based on 13 software qualities. The products range in scope and purpose from a complete desktop GIS systems, to stand-alone tools, to programming libraries/packages.

The template used to grade the software is found in the TabularSummaries.zip file. Each quality is measured with a series of questions. For unambiguity the responses are quantified wherever possible (e.g.~yes/no answers). The goal is for measures that are visible, measurable and feasible in a short time with limited domain knowledge. Unlike a comprehensive software review, this template does not grade on functionality and features. Therefore, it is possible that a relatively featureless product can outscore a feature-rich product.

A virtual machine is used to provide an optimal testing environments for each software product. During the process of grading the 30 software products, it is much easier to create a new virtual machine to test the software on, rather than using the host operating system and file system.

The raw data obtained by measuring each software product is in SoftwareGrading-GIS.xlsx. Each line in this file corresponds to between 2 and 4 hours of measurement time by a software engineer. The results are summarized for each quality in the TabularSummaries.zip file, as a tex file and compiled pdf file.

Planning an offshore wind project is considered a highly complex and multivariable task since it involves controversial objectives and constraints to be considered. Hence, compactness and contiguity are indispensable properties in spatial modelling for Renewable Energy Sources (RES) planning processes. The proposed methodology demonstrates the development of a raster-based spatial optimization model for future Offshore Wind Farm (OWF) site-prospecting multi-objective optimization in terms of the simulated Annual Energy Production (AEP), Wind Power Variability (WPV) and the Depth Profile (DP), towards an integer mathematical programming approach.

Dataset contains training material on using open source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to improve protected area planning and management from a workshop that was conducted on August 17-21, 2020. Specifically, the dataset contains lectures on GIS fundamentals, QGIS 3.x, and global positioning system (GPS), as well as country-specific datasets and a workbook containing exercises for viewing data, editing/creating datasets, and creating map products in QGIS. Supplemental videos that narrate a step-by-step recap and overview of these processes are found in the Related Content section of this dataset.

Funding for this workshop and material was funded by the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management (BIOPAMA) programme. The BIOPAMA programme is an initiative of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States financed by the European Union's 11th European Development Fund. BIOPAMA is jointly implemented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature {IUCN) and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC-JRC). In the Pacific region, BIOPAMA is implemented by IUCN's Oceania Regional Office (IUCN ORO) in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). The overall objective of the BIOPAMA programme is to contribute to improving the long-term conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and natural resources in the Pacific ACP region in protected areas and surrounding communities through better use and monitoring of information and capacity development on management and governance.

This feature class (shapefile) consists of point locations of public, private, and charter schools including pre-schools, day care facilities, adult and vocational schools in New Jersey, with minimal attributes. Most of the public schools were initially located in 2003 by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and were checked in 2007-2016 by the NJ Office of Geographic Information Systems (OGIS), other organizations and volunteers. Charter schools were located in 2011 and checked through 2016 by OGIS against the 2016 NJ Department of Education table of public schools that also lists charter schools.Private schools were located initially in 2010, and updated later in 2014 only for Somerset County using the spatial data provided by Somerset County GIS team. The present data set is the result of checking and updating the previous locations by processing the tabular data that were acquired from NJDOE in August, 2016.

© Most of the public school records were derived from 2003 data sets created by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Special acknowledgements are to people of the following organizations who made a significant contribution to school location verification process: Seth Hackman (NJDEP), Salem county GIS; Morris County GIS; Atlantic County GIS; Cape May County GIS; DVRPC; Hunterdon County GIS; Somerset County GIS; Warren County Prosecutor's Office; Westfield Engineering; WFS (for Mercer, Middlesex, Burlington and Camden Co.) ; Monmouth GIS; voluneers and state employees who made site visits on their own time: Charles Colvard, Dominic Juliano, Matt Lawson, Richard Rabinowitz, Amy J. Ferdinand, Rebecca French-Mesch.

This layer is a component of Sites and Facilities.

Database created for replication of GeoStoryTelling. Our life stories evolve in specific and contextualized places. Although our homes may be our primarily shaping environment, our homes are themselves situated in neighborhoods that expose us to the immediate “real world” outside home. Indeed, the places where we are currently experiencing, and have experienced life, play a fundamental role in gaining a deeper and more nuanced understanding of our beliefs, fears, perceptions of the world, and even our prospects of social mobility. Despite the immediate impact of the places where we experience life in reaching a better understanding of our life stories, to date most qualitative and mixed methods researchers forego the analytic and elucidating power that geo-contextualizing our narratives bring to social and health research. From this view then, most research findings and conclusions may have been ignoring the spatial contexts that most likely have shaped the experiences of research participants. The main reason for the underuse of these geo-contextualized stories is the requirement of specialized training in geographical information systems and/or computer and statistical programming along with the absence of cost-free and user-friendly geo-visualization tools that may allow non-GIS experts to benefit from geo-contextualized outputs. To address this gap, we present GeoStoryTelling, an analytic framework and user-friendly, cost-free, multi-platform software that enables researchers to visualize their geo-contextualized data narratives. The use of this software (available in Mac and Windows operative systems) does not require users to learn GIS nor computer programming to obtain state-of-the-art, and visually appealing maps. In addition to providing a toy database to fully replicate the outputs presented, we detail the process that researchers need to follow to build their own databases without the need of specialized external software nor hardware. We show how the resulting HTML outputs are capable of integrating a variety of multi-media inputs (i.e., text, image, videos, sound recordings/music, and hyperlinks to other websites) to provide further context to the geo-located stories we are sharing (example https://cutt.ly/k7X9tfN). Accordingly, the goals of this paper are to describe the components of the methodology, the steps to construct the database, and to provide unrestricted access to the software tool, along with a toy dataset so that researchers may interact first-hand with GeoStoryTelling and fully replicate the outputs discussed herein. Since GeoStoryTelling relied on OpenStreetMap its applications may be used worldwide, thus strengthening its potential reach to the mixed methods and qualitative scientific communities, regardless of location around the world. Keywords: Geographical Information Systems; Interactive Visualizations; Data StoryTelling; Mixed Methods & Qualitative Research Methodologies; Spatial Data Science; Geo-Computation.

Dataset contains training material on using open source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to improve protected area planning and management from a workshop that was conducted on October 19-23, 2020. Specifically, the dataset contains lectures on GIS fundamentals, QGIS 3.x, and global positioning system (GPS), as well as country-specific datasets and a workbook containing exercises for viewing data, editing/creating datasets, and creating map products in QGIS. Supplemental videos that narrate a step-by-step recap and overview of these processes are found in the Related Content section of this dataset.

Funding for this workshop and material was funded by the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management (BIOPAMA) programme. The BIOPAMA programme is an initiative of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States financed by the European Union's 11th European Development Fund. BIOPAMA is jointly implemented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature {IUCN) and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC-JRC). In the Pacific region, BIOPAMA is implemented by IUCN's Oceania Regional Office (IUCN ORO) in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). The overall objective of the BIOPAMA programme is to contribute to improving the long-term conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and natural resources in the Pacific ACP region in protected areas and surrounding communities through better use and monitoring of information and capacity development on management and governance.

Through the Department of the Interior-Bureau of Indian Affairs Enterprise License Agreement (DOI-BIA ELA) program, BIA employees and employees of federally-recognized Tribes may access a variety of geographic information systems (GIS) online courses and instructor-led training events throughout the year at no cost to them. These online GIS courses and instructor-led training events are hosted by the Branch of Geospatial Support (BOGS) or offered by BOGS in partnership with other organizations and federal agencies. Online courses are self-paced and available year-round, while instructor-led training events have limited capacity and require registration and attendance on specific dates. This dataset does not any training where the course was not completed by the participant or where training was cancelled or otherwise not able to be completed. Point locations depict BIA Office locations or Tribal Office Headquarters. For completed trainings where a participant location was not provided a point locations may not be available. For more information on the Branch of Geospatial Support Geospatial training program, please visit:https://www.bia.gov/service/geospatial-training.

Through the Department of the Interior-Bureau of Indian Affairs Enterprise License Agreement (DOI-BIA ELA) program, BIA employees and employees of federally-recognized Tribes may access a variety of geographic information systems (GIS) online courses and instructor-led training events throughout the year at no cost to them. These online GIS courses and instructor-led training events are hosted by the Branch of Geospatial Support (BOGS) or offered by BOGS in partnership with other organizations and federal agencies. Online courses are self-paced and available year-round, while instructor-led training events have limited capacity and require registration and attendance on specific dates. This dataset does not any training where the course was not completed by the participant or where training was cancelled or otherwise not able to be completed. Point locations depict BIA Office locations or Tribal Office Headquarters. For completed trainings where a participant location was not provided a point locations may not be available. For more information on the Branch of Geospatial Support Geospatial training program, please visit:https://www.bia.gov/service/geospatial-training.

Well-established conservation planning principles and techniques framed by geodesign were used to assess the restorability of areas that historically supported coastal wetlands along the U.S. shore of the connecting rivers (Detroit River and St. Clair River). The resulting analysis supported planning efforts to identify, prioritize, and track wetland restoration opportunity and investment in the region. To accomplish this, publicly available data, criteria derived from the regional managers and local stakeholders, and geospatial analysis were used to form an ecological model for spatial prioritization.

Count of high school graduates for each public school in Alaska. Data covers the School Year 2013 to the present. Each year's count includes students graduating at any point during the school year (July 1 to June 30).Source: Alaska Department of Education & Early Development

This data has been visualized in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) format and is provided as a service in the DCRA Information Portal by the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development Division of Community and Regional Affairs (SOA DCCED DCRA), Research and Analysis section. SOA DCCED DCRA Research and Analysis is not the authoritative source for this data. For more information and for questions about this data, see: Alaska Department of Education & Early Development Data Center.

In December 1997, the Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts called a meeting of various county, state and federal agencies, as well as private companies known to have active GIS programs or interests. The goal of this meeting was to determine how funding could be generated to produce statewide digital orthophotography. The group that had assembled decided to continue meeting with a goal of implementing statewide GIS coordination. This effort became known as the Indiana Geographical Information Systems Initiative (INGISI).In 1998, thirty-nine government, academic and industry representatives signed the Indiana GIS Initiative Commitment to Success, formally endorsing the broad principles of INGISI. Initial funding was provided by grants from the Federal Geographic Data Committee and the Indiana Land Resources Council.Voluntary cooperation and partnership is a driving force behind successful community GIS initiatives, further garnering the required support to be sustainable. This Commitment to Success document proved to be impactful when speaking with senior executives.Today, Indiana has a thriving statewide geospatial program and ecosystem.Learn more about the Indiana Geographic Information Council history https://www.igic.org/history

This dataset is the output of a python script/ArcGIS model that identifes dikes as having a difference in elevation above a certain threshold. If the elevation difference was below a certain threshold the area was not considered a dike; however, if the difference in elevation between two points was significantly high then the area was marked as a dike. Areas continuous with eachother were considered part of the same dike. Post processing occured. Users examined the data output, comparing the proposed dike locations to aerial imagery, flowline data, and the DEM. Dikes that appeared to be false positives were deleted from the data set.

Well-established conservation planning principles and techniques framed by geodesign were used to assess the restorability of areas that historically supported coastal wetlands along the U.S. shore of Saginaw Bay. The resulting analysis supported planning efforts to identify, prioritize, and track wetland restoration opportunity and investment in the region. To accomplish this, publicly available data, criteria derived from the regional managers and local stakeholders, and geospatial analysis were used to form an ecological model for spatial prioritization.

According to many previous studies, application of remote sensing for the complex and heterogeneous urban environments in Sub-Saharan African countries is challenging due to the spectral confusion among features caused by diversity of construction materials. Resorting to classification based on spectral indices that are expected to better highlight features of interest and to be prone to unsupervised classification, this study aims (1) to evaluate the effectiveness of index-based classification for Land Use Land Cover (LULC) using an unsupervised machine learning algorithm Product Quantized K-means (PQk-means); and (2) to monitor the urban expansion of Luanda, the capital city of Angola in a Logistic Regression Model (LRM). Comparison with state-of-the-art algorithms shows that unsupervised classification by means of spectral indices is effective for the study area and can be used for further studies. The built-up area of Luanda has increased from 94.5 km2 in 2000 to 198.3 km2 in 2008 and to 468.4 km2 in 2018, mainly driven by the proximity to the already established residential areas and to the main roads as confirmed by the logistic regression analysis. The generated probability maps show high probability of urban growth in the areas where government had defined housing programs.

This dataset is the output of a python script/ArcGIS model that identifes dikes as having a difference in elevation above a certain threshold. If the elevation difference was below a certain threshold the area was not considered a dike; however, if the difference in elevation between two points was significantly high then the area was marked as a dike. Areas continuous with eachother were considered part of the same dike. Post processing occured. Users examined the data output, comparing the proposed dike locations to aerial imagery, flowline data, and the DEM. Dikes that appeared to be false positives were deleted from the data set.