While digital GIS dates to the mid-1960s, when Roger Tomlinson first coined the phrase "geographic information system", many of the geographic concepts and methods that GIS automates date back decades earlier.Ä®. 6.1 Open Geospatial Consortium standards.
A geographic information system ( GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data.