Between the Poles: 80% of information has geographic location content, doesn't it ?

Geoff Zeiss

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June 09, 2014

80% of information has geographic location content, doesn't it ?

Everyone in the geospatial industry knows that 80% of data has a geospatial component, but I have never seen a reference or link to the research on which this is based. GIS Lounge has tried to track this assertion back to its original source The earliest mention that was found is an article written by Robert E. Williams in 1987 entitled “Selling a geographical information system to government policy makers.” At the time Williams was the Director of the Alachua County Regional Information Center. The article was published in “Papers from the 1987 Annual Conference of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association” by URISA and contains the following paragraph:

"Automated mapping is probably an easier sell because, again, the policymakers are cognizant of the need for improved mapping capabilities. It has been estimated that approximately 80% of the informational needs of a local government policymaker is related to a geographical location. This information is usually supplied by a map rendering, e.g., maps showing the location of a parcel of land being considered for a rezoning petition."

But there is no link or citation for the statement. So at this point the best guess is that the 80% rule came down from the mountain with Moses.

However GIS Lounge cites modern research in Germany that analyzed German Wikipedia articles and found that the actual number may lie in the 60-80% range.

Posted at 09:30 AM in Spatial Data | Permalink

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80% is one of those geographic urban myths, along the lines of Einstein saying he consider geography for study but found geography too hard so he switched to physics.

My personal belief is that the percentage of location enabled content is actually higher than 80%. Some content has "direct" location codings, such as an address, coordinates, IP addresses, GPS tracking, meets and bounds (20 feet south of the river), landmarks, and so forth. This is not just map information or customer databases but every financial transaction, every stock transaction, location tracking and so on. Then there are indirect location or geographic codings, such as a URL than can be resolved to a physical location.

Between the Poles

Geoff Zeiss

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June 09, 2014

80% of information has geographic location content, doesn't it ?

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