ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the nature of geographic information from a number of different standpoints, drawing in the process on the general literature surrounding the debate on information as a whole as well as on literature from the geographic information field. The first part considers what is special about information and geographic information both in the overall context of the emergence of a global information economy and with particular reference to the significance of geographic location as a means of integrating databases held by a large number of public and private agencies.
