History of GIS : 

Now we will try to know the history of ‘GIS’ in a very brief form. But let me say at the outset, ‘History is a difficult task’. Because there are some differences in the history of GIS in different published books / articles / short essays / documents / paragraphs / research articles. So many people may disagree on some issues. But I will do my best to present the correct history.

By very early GIS we mean the presentation of information on a map. It can be said that GIS originated about 35,000 years ago. This is because the ‘Cro-Magnon’ hunters of the time painted portraits of the hunted animals on the inner walls of their caves, Tally, the daily movement of those animals and the details of the migration route. This would have facilitated their hunting. Many believe that the concept of 'GIS' originated from this type of historical script / painting (Fig. 1). 

Fig 1: Cave painting of animal and their migration paths drawn by hunters 17000 years ago. Location: Lascaus Caves, France. 

Later many people tried to publish / present geographical information through maps. One of them is the map of the battle of York Town drawn by the French cartographer Louis-Alexandre Berthier in 181 (Fig. 2).

 

Fig 2: A map of the battle of York Town, drawn in 181 by the French cartographer Louis-Alexandre Berthier. 

In 1854, cholera spread in the city of London. Then a British doctor named 'John Snow' made a documentary of the cholera affected area through a hand drawn map (Fig-3). It is said that the origin of modern day GIS is from such spatial analysis maps. 

 

Fig 3: Partial map of London drawn by John Snow in 1854. Cholera affected areas are marked in dark black.

Thus, modern instrument / computer-based GIS Originated in North America in the 1960s from 'hand-drawn' maps at various times.