Here are included the European and the Finnish versions. Definition Geographic information is information concerning phenomena directly or indirectly associated with a location relative to the surface on the Earth. Geographic information is a complete set of spatial, attribute and identifying information of an object of the reality, including information concerning the quality of the information. Geographic information is typically digital cartographic information and attribute databases, which describe e.g. the natural resources, topography, land use and land use plans, land ownership, settlement, commercial and industrial activities, transportation and community service networks, and the condition of the environment. The significance and importance of geographic information is that it describes the reality in a simplified and classified manner.
Geographic information can describe the past, the present and the future.
A major part of data resources aims to describe the present situation. For example, observations on weather and environment are collected daily, in respect to location on the Earth, thus forming a time serie, from which temporal and areal changes can be derived. On the other hand, land use plans are geographic information about the future. Geographic datasets describe different phenomena. These information can be combined, analysed, and visualised using the tools provided by GISs.