A geographic information system (GIS) is a computer mapping system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating, and displaying geographically referenced information (i.e. spatial data).

A geographic information system (GIS) captures, stores, analyzes, manages, and presents data that is linked to location. This allows us to view, interpret, and visualize data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends between the data. Because viewing data in a visual way is very intuitive for humans a GIS helps us to answer questions and solve problems by looking at data in a way that can be quickly understood and easily shared.

What is a GIS used for?

Mills County uses GIS to accomplish such things as property assessment, identifying parcel boundaries, right-of-ways, analyzing property and parcel information, and it's used in roadside sign management. Future implementations of GIS in Mills County may include such things as law enforcement planning, emergency planning and impact analysis, planning and analysis of county roads projects, and conservation planning and analysis.