ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how geospatial information and technology contribute to understanding the urban. It begins with a brief history of the development of geospatial information and technology. This is followed by a description of the two organizing concepts of spatial data along with the basic principles of remote sensing and geographical information system data. The chapter explores how different types of remote sensing data capture and classify urban features; this is followed by a discussion of how this has produced a number of global urban datasets. It examines the speculations on the implications for wider definitions and treatment of the urban. Geospatial technologies have become a fundamental tool for researchers and practitioners to help understand and manage urban environments. Geospatial techniques are based on a series of innovations that go back far in human history and are concerned with our most basic sense of space and time. In strictest sense, geospatial techniques have defined the urban as a territorial boundary.
