Components of GIS

Explain the role of people and procedures.

A GIS has five components:

Hardware: the computer processing, storage, display, and input/output sub-systems.
Software: modules for data entry and editing, for analysis and manipulation (such as buffering), and for display and output.
Data: spatial data and tabular (attribute) data, the backbone of GIS. Digital maps are the basic input.
People: everyone from the engineers who build systems to the scientists, planners, policy-makers and agencies who use GIS for decisions.
Procedures: the methods by which data are retrieved, input, stored, managed, analysed and presented.

In short: machines, programs, data, people and method.

Machines, programs, data, people, method.

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