geographic information systems (gis) deal with the storage of information about the earth for automatic retrieval by a computer, in an accurate manner appropriate to the information's purpose. in addition to all of the other subdisciplines of geography, gis specialists must understand computer science and database systems. gis has revolutionized the field of cartography: nearly all mapmaking is now done with the assistance of some form of gis software. gis also refers to the science of using gis software and gis techniques to represent, analyse, and predict the spatial relationships. in this context, gis stands for "geographic information science".