1What are the roots of GIS?
Cartography and mapping
2What were early maps used for?
Exploration, strategy, and planning
3What happened in London in 1854 that demonstrated early spatial analysis?
John Snow mapped cholera cases to trace the outbreak to one water source
4Who was John Snow?
A physician who used maps to analyze the spatial distribution of cholera cases
5What did John Snow's cholera map demonstrate?
Spatial analysis
6What emerged during the 1960s as computers advanced?
Geographic computer science
7Which company was a major leader in computer development during the 1960s?
IBM
8When did the first GIS emerge?
1963
9Who is known as the father of GIS?
Roger Tomlinson
10What did Roger Tomlinson begin in 1963?
A national land use management program for the Canadian government
11What did Tomlinson's program inventory?
Natural resources
12Who first coined the term Geographic Information System?
Roger Tomlinson
13What happened in 1965 at Harvard?
Howard Fisher established the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis
14Who established the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis?
Howard Fisher
15What was the Harvard Lab known for?
Developing early GIS software and exploring computer mapping and spatial analysis
16What early GIS software was developed at the Harvard Lab?
ODYSSEY
17Who were some GIS pioneers associated with the Harvard Lab?
Jack Dangermond, Carl Steinitz, Scott Morehouse, Allan Schmidt, and Allen Bernholtz
18What influential book was published in 1969?
Design with Nature
19Who wrote Design with Nature?
Ian McHarg
20What approach did Ian McHarg champion?
A holistic and environmentally conscious approach to landscape architecture and urban planning
21What GIS concept is associated with Ian McHarg's Design with Nature?
The layer cake method
22What is the layer cake method?
Stacking different layers of geographic information for analysis
23What major GIS company was founded in 1969?
Esri
24Who founded Esri?
Jack and Laura Dangermond
25What does E.S.R.I. stand for?
Environmental Systems Research Institute
26What was Esri originally focused on?
Helping land-use planners make better decisions while protecting the environment
27What happened in 1972 that greatly benefited GIS?
The first Landsat satellite was launched
28What is Landsat primarily used for?
Earth observation and collecting satellite imagery
29Why was Landsat important to GIS?
It provided satellite imagery tied to geographic locations and became a major GIS data source
30What era did Landsat help begin?
The era of remote sensing
31What happened in 1978?
The United States launched its first GPS satellite, Navstar I
32What was the first GPS satellite called?
Navstar I
33When did GPS achieve full global coverage?
1994
34What is the significance of GPS to GIS?
It allows objects and locations to be positioned geographically and greatly increases spatial data
35What does GNSS stand for?
Global Navigation Satellite System
36When was the first Esri User Conference held?
1981
37How many users attended the first Esri User Conference?
16 users
38Where was the first Esri User Conference held?
Redlands, California
39When was ARC/INFO released?
1982
40What was ARC/INFO?
A comprehensive commercial GIS product developed by Esri
41Why was ARC/INFO important?
It provided a standardized methodology for implementing GIS broadly
42Who played a key role in developing ARC/INFO?
Scott Morehouse
43Where had Scott Morehouse previously worked?
The Harvard Lab
44What open-source GIS software began development in 1982?
GRASS
45What does GRASS stand for?
Geographic Resources Analysis Support System
46Who began developing GRASS?
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
47Why was GRASS important?
It broadened access to GIS as open-source software
48What happened in 1986 related to navigation?
Etak developed early in-car navigation concepts
49What was the first car with an automatic navigation system?
Mazda's Eunos Cosmo
50What organization was established in 1988?
The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis
51What does NCGIA stand for?
National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis
52Who directed the NCGIA project?
Michael Goodchild
53Why was Michael Goodchild important to GIS?
He became a thought leader in geographic information science
54What was completed by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1990?
TIGER
55What does TIGER stand for?
Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing
56What did the TIGER database contain?
Digital information on roads, boundaries, and water
57Why was TIGER important?
It was the first nationwide digital map of roads, boundaries, and water in the United States
58What happened to GIS in 1991?
GIS began going mainstream
59What showed that GIS was becoming mainstream in 1991?
Forbes, Fortune, and Business Week began writing about GIS
60What happened in Britain in 1995?
The UK Ordnance Survey completed GIS coverage of the entire United Kingdom
61How many maps did Britain digitize?
230,000 maps
62Why was Britain's 1995 achievement significant?
Britain became the first country to complete a large-scale electronic mapping program
63When was the first GIS Day held?
1999
64Who celebrated the first GIS Day?
Jack Dangermond, Dr. Roger Tomlinson, and students
65Where was the first GIS Day held?
Murch Elementary School in Washington, DC
66When is GIS Day celebrated?
The third Wednesday of November during Geography Awareness Week
67Who inspired GIS Day according to Jack Dangermond?
Ralph Nader
68What milestone did Esri reach in 2001?
1 million licensed software seats
69How many organizations were using GIS in 2001?
About 100,000 organizations
70What was the estimated GIS marketplace value in 2001?
\$7 billion
71What happened to NIMA in 2004?
It was renamed the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
72Why was NIMA renamed NGA?
To emphasize the growing importance of geospatial intelligence
73What happened with Web 2.0 in 2004?
The web became more interactive and helped GIS move to the web
74How could GIS be delivered because of Web 2.0?
As SaaS in addition to desktop software
75What major mapping technologies appeared in 2005?
Google Maps and Google Earth
76Why was Google Maps important to GIS?
It allowed everyone to interact with and benefit from GIS technology
77What happened in 2006 that helped GIS?
Amazon Web Services was released, accelerating cloud computing and storage
78Why is cloud computing important to GIS?
It allows organizations to store large amounts of data and scale online operations
79What happened in 2007?
Apple's iPhone launched the smartphone industry
80Why was the iPhone important to GIS?
Smartphones became portable computers and GPS devices, allowing GIS to be used anywhere
81What happened in 2009 regarding GIS data?
Digital data libraries and open government datasets began proliferating
82What U.S. government website made authoritative open datasets publicly available?
Data.gov
83What Esri platform provides thousands of ready-made datasets?
ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World
84When was ArcGIS Online released?
2012
85What is ArcGIS Online?
Esri's cloud-based GIS platform
86What major benefit did ArcGIS Online provide?
Better collaboration and cloud-based access to GIS
87When did Esri actively begin bringing AI and GIS together?
2018
88What discipline emerged from combining GIS and AI?
GeoAI
89What is GeoAI?
The combination of GIS and artificial intelligence for spatial workflows and analysis
90When were machine-learning capabilities introduced into ArcGIS?
As early as 2009
91When was Esri's first publicly released deep-learning pre-trained AI model made available?
October 7, 2020
92Where were Esri's pre-trained AI models made available?
ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World
93What are AI-driven spatial workflows particularly good at?
Automation and making sense of large datasets, especially imagery
94What happened in 2020 that demonstrated GIS's importance to public health?
GIS was used extensively to support the COVID-19 response
95Who created the famous ArcGIS-powered COVID-19 tracking dashboard?
Johns Hopkins University
96What was the purpose of the Johns Hopkins GIS dashboard?
To monitor and visualize the global COVID-19 pandemic
97Why was the COVID-19 dashboard significant?
It brought GIS to the forefront of public knowledge and inspired thousands of similar dashboards
98How important is GIS today?
GIS is used widely across universities, businesses, governments, and nonprofit organizations
99What percentage of universities offer a GIS course or program?
More than 95 percent
100What types of organizations commonly use GIS today?
Fortune 500 companies, national and local governments, and nonprofit institutions
101How has GIS evolved over time?
From traditional mapping and spatial analysis to computer GIS, remote sensing, GPS, web GIS, cloud GIS, mobile GIS, and GeoAI