9- History
Work on GIS began in late 1950s, but first GIS software came only in late 1970s from the lab of the ESRI. Canada was the pioneer in the development of GIS as a result of innovations dating back to early 1960s. Much of the credit for the early development of GIS. Evolution of GIS has transformed and revolutionized the ways in which planners, engineers, managers etc. conduct the database management and analysis.
- First GIS was the Canada Geographic Information System
(mid 1960s) developed from land management.
Harvard University’s Laboratory for Computer Graphics and
Spatial Analyst developed ODYSSEY GIS (late 1970s).
– Currently, GIS is a 7 billion dollar industry with multiple
major GIS software vendors
– Greater than 1 million users in academic, military, public
government agencies and private sector
GIS early history began in early 1960’s
Prof. Ian McHarg is the first to set the theoretical foundation of GIS in his well known book “ Design with Nature”
Canada GIS, developed in mid 1960’s by the Canadian government was the first nationwide GIS
In 1967 Land Use and Natural Resources Inventory System was installed by the State of New York,USA
In 1969 Minnesota Land Management Information System was installed by the State of Minnesota, USA
Meanwhile, there were two active academic
research groups:
1) Harvard Lab For Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis at Harvard University, USA
2) The Experimental Cartography Unit, United Kingdom
Both had major influence on the development of GIS until early 1980s