An Introduction to GIS (All Things Spatial)

Abstract

The last chapter provided an introduction to two of the key components in a GIS: getting the data in, and then manipulating them to answer questions. This chapter considers how these data can be visualized and analyzed. The analysis section in this chapter will be fairly simplistic, as this topic is revisited again in Chapters V and VI with the introduction of increasingly more sophisticated measures. The chapter will end with a discussion of an important topic integral to urban area analysis but which is often missed when discussing the GIS: What exactly is a neighborhood and how should it be spatially defined?