(GIS) an organized collection of computer hardware, software, geographic and descriptive data, personnel, knowledge, and procedures designed to efficiently capture, store, update, manipulate, analyze, report, and display the forms of geographically referenced information and descriptive information —note 1. a central component of information storage is the necessity for topology to be maintained and coordinated by the software; otherwise, certain complex spatial operations are not possible or would be very difficult, time-consuming, or impractical —note 2. the major components of a GIS are the user interface, database management, data entry, product generation, and spatial data manipulation and analysis, which may be centralized or distributed across a network This definition last updated 10/27/2008