ABSTRACT
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide a new context for considering problems of map compilation and generalization. There are many similarities between the process of compiling and presenting a digital cartographic database and the traditional map compilation process. This chapter begins by establishing generalization as a part of map compilation. Geographic databases are compiled as a result of a measurement or sampling process which is applied to geographic reality. The measurement process is defined by a specification of the information content of the database. Most spatial analysis operations in a GIS work at the level of the generic data model rather than the higher semantic level of a particular content specification. Geographic information systems provide cartographers with many tools and techniques which are useful in accomplishing their traditional goal of map production. They also open new issues related to geographic information gathering and management apart from map production.
