The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B4. Beijing 2008 
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resources and infrastructure through the production of the 
Topographic Map Series at the scale of 1:50,000 as well as the 
corresponding natural resources mapping. This Commission 
was the forerunner of the actual DGG and the official main 
organization dealing with the generation of geographic 
information at the. DGG is the prime basic geographic 
information provider. 
3. GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION DEVELOPMENT 
The analysis on the actual geospatial information status shows 
that activities have been characterized by the production of a 
huge volume of analogical cartographic data in several 
government organizations. Through a modernization of 
activities beginning in the early 90's the change to the digital 
approach has been growing both in extent and coverage, where 
a high share of the activities have been devoted to convert 
analogical data and mapping to the digital format. 
Considering the national extent, data integration in appropriate 
schema of use does not exists, that is, there is not a full formal 
geospatial information commitment aimed to foster responsible 
knowledge corresponding to the data-information-knowledge 
scheme, nor a well developed integration with statistical 
information. What is appreciated is a general deficiency of 
geospatial information administration systems, in most cases 
existing data and information are not known to decision takers, 
data are not shared, have difficulties for access, are of unknown 
or questionable quality, are not standardized and are very much 
disperse among the several organizations. This is the national 
context. 
INEGI is responsible for the production of a high share of 
fundamental and basic digital data and mapping for the country. 
However, the scope should cover all organizations in the federal, 
state and local governments, including the academia and private 
sectors. This is why INEGI has taken the initiative to develop 
the IDEMex. 
4. GIS DEVELOPMENT AT INEGI 
GIS's at INEGI is considered in two different contexts: the 
operational one regarding them as tools for the analysis and 
treatment of data and the other as a concept developed through 
the modernization of geographic activities, which we call the 
institutional approach. 
5. THE OPERATIONAL GIS APPROACH 
A common definition is that any GIS is a computerized based 
system used to capture, store, manage, edit, display and present 
geographically referenced data. According to Burrough, (1986), 
GIS's are defined as a set of powerful tools for the collection, 
storage, retrieval at will, transform and display of real world 
spatial data for a particular set of purposes. Following Aronoff 
(1989) GIS are any set of manual or computerized procedures 
used to store and manipulate geographically referenced data. 
6. THE MODES OF OPERATIONAL GIS. 
GIS have different meanings according to specific purposes, 
synthesized through three distinctive modes, that is a) the map, 
b) the database and c) the space analysis mode. 
GIS's can be seen as cartographic production systems or at least 
as geographic information display systems. In the cartographic 
process each data set is represented as a map or as a map layer, 
usually in a raster format. 
In the database approach, predominant within the community 
having a computer background the importance lies on the 
availability of a well implemented database. 
The third mode puts all the weight on space analysis. This point 
of view is the most accepted within the GIS community and can 
be used to establish a difference with other GIS's. The main 
difference with any cartographic system lies precisely in the 
analytical capacities; cartography as an information tool for 
such tasks is limited. 
7. THE INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH OF GIS 
GIS and SDI concepts are not new in Mexico if the NGIS is 
considered. According to the LIEG, this GIS is defined as the 
"Data set produced by the public institutions, organized under 
a predetermined conceptual structure which allows showing the 
situation and interdependence of economic, demographic and 
social phenomena, as well as its relationship with the physical 
medium and the territorial space." 
A strong bond between the NGIS and the IDEMex exists as we 
shall see later, since in fact, this can be included in the scope of 
the former and is part of its integration and development. Since 
the Law was promulgated in 1980, the SDI idea was already 
embedded, though not implemented. Prior to the 90's, 
geographic information was becoming digital in several media 
according to technological change and influence of computer 
technology: the necessity to go digital became clear. 
The purpose materialized when beginning 1992 a strong effort 
was implemented to establish the System by developing an 
operative NGIS composed of several modules and taking care 
of the three modes of GIS as explained before. 
8. GIS AND CARTOGRAPHY 
Cartography has been defined as the science, art and technology 
of making maps and its study as both scientific documents and 
works of art, or as the discipline dealing with the conception, 
production, dissemination and study of maps,. 
From a definition viewpoint it seems somewhat difficult to 
establish a relationship between GIS and Cartography, except 
when systems include the geographically referenced spatial data 
concept. However, the concept with cartography is not at all 
absolute from this perspective as any piece of data can be 
geographically located and entered in a database without 
necessarily coming from a map, though maps are a good source 
and the most common geographically referenced data for GIS. 
Both cartography and GIS have to deal with geographic 
information and are communication instruments for decision