Few textbooks offer a comprehensive overview of geographic information systems (GIS) today. The literature common in academic circles is highly technical and pays little attention to the role GIS plays, and has played, as a tool in the planning and shaping of society and the world around us. The authors of this book feel strongly about the potential inherent in the concepts and methodologies that make up a geographic information system. Similarly, the authors are aware of the limitations of the uniformly technical and structural approach that dominates discussions about GIS in many professional circles. The authors' ambition with this book is to guide the reader on an educational, easy-to-understand journey that introduces the concepts and methodologies that lie behind todays geographic information systems. Their goal is thus to make GIS both more familiar and relevant to a far broader section of the professional circles who plan, organise and shape our surroundings.