Geographical Review of Japan Series B 86(1): 7581 (2013)

Review Article of the Special Issue on Geography in Japan after the 1980s

Development of GIS Studies in Japan The Association of Japanese Geographers

http://www.ajg.or.jp

MURAYAMA Yuji
Division of Spatial Information Science, Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba;
Tsukuba 3058572, Japan.
E-mail: mura@geoenv.tsukuba.ac.jp
Received February 2, 2013; Accepted April 24, 2013

Abstract GIS studies in Japan started to develop in the 1970s. At this time, quantitative geographers committed
to GIS, and came to grips with methods to implement quantitative analysis, together with computer mapping. In
the 1980s, spatial analysis with GIS emerged. With the spread of PCs at the beginning of the 1990s it became pos-
sible even for non-GIS specialists to use GIS; hence, empirical studies using GIS became popular in various fields of
geography. Previously, GIS research in Japan was dominated mainly by GIS theories and techniques from the West,
but with the advent of the 21st century, GIS research originating from Japan could also be found. In order to advance
further GIS research, it is necessary to implement studies closely related to society. It is important to understand the
needs of the public and citizens precisely, and to put research into practice that makes use of GIS for the benefit of
Japanese society. Armed with refined GIS techniques, new methodological approaches are expected to affect posi-
tively urban planning and regional policy.
Key words GIS, geography, GIScience, spatial analysis, Japan

Introduction tems, and factorial ecology, etc., advanced vigorously. The

Originating from geography, geodesy, cartography, and
information science, GIS encompasses a broad range of
scientific disciplines, such as: environmental sciences,
urban planning, civil engineering and architecture, social
medicine, agriculture and forestry, and archeology. This
article discusses how geographers have been affected by
GIS as an academic discipline, and how they have con-
tributed to the growth of GIS studies. At the same time,
an outlook is presented on the future role and task of ge-
ography regarding GIS.
A Brief History of GIS
The introduction period
From the middle of the 1950s to the early 1960s, new
methodologies in geography using statistical and math-
ematical techniques that attempt to generalize and struc-
ture various phenomena, emerged in the United States.
This movement, breaking away from idiographic thinking
towards nomothetic geography, is called the quantitative
revolution. Eventually, this revolution spread from the
West to Asia, and from the beginning of the 1970s, the
use of theoretical and quantitative geography was on the
rise in Japan (Murayama 2004a). Transport and urban
geography, which made use of multivariate analysis, net-
work theory, and point distribution patterns, etc., became
popular and research of the connectivity and accessibility
of traffic networks, the classification of cities, urban sys-
processing of inevitably massive amounts of data became
necessary for the implementation of this research and the
spread of mainframe computers and the development
of software for statistical analysis made those operations
possible (Murayama 2004b). Furthermore, the study of
analytical cartography started due to the spread of line
printers and the concurrent deepening of computer and
mapping skills. In addition, the automatic drawing pack-
ages SYMAP and GRID made in USA were introduced at
major universities in Japan.
In the mid-1970s, GIS for public services and business
purposes began to grow. The small-area information sys-
tem with the purpose of reducing complex census proce-
dures, the Urban Information System (UIS) supporting
urban planning decisions and policy making, the Infor-
mation System for Land (ISLAND) using and managing
digital national land information, and the Total Utility
Mapping System (TUMSY) helping with efficient man-
agement of gas facilities, were representative examples of
these (Okabe 2008). Community and public corporations
and administrations had a growing interest in GIS tech-
niques and their practical implementations in order to
make regular procedures more efficient. However, the re-
search practiced in the scientific community had a stron-
ger focus on theoretical research and the conceptual de-
sign of GIS. In the field of geography, Junjiro Takahashi,
Iwao Kanayasu, Sachio Kubo, and others were engaged in
vigorous theoretical research of computer mapping and
GIS (Kubo 1991).

2013 The Association of Japanese Geographers

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Junjiro Takahashi carried out his research Use of area From the 1980s through the 1990s the theoretical and
information graphics systems for urban planning from practical approaches in GIS increased and spatial analysis
1977 through 1979 funded by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific methodologies became popular. Although spatial analy-
Research, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, and
the very first university-launched GIS, called Urban Plan-
ning Computer Graphics System, was put into operation
(Okabe 2008). While this system was developed, Kubo
in 1978 implemented a raster model GIS program called
Area Land Information System (ALIS), which could be
run on mainframe computers (Kubo 1980). At the time,
ALIS was a groundbreaking system, because it provided
the various functionality to create shaded distribution
maps, three-dimensional charts, multi-color maps and
grid maps, and to perform trend surface analyses, entropy
calculations and spatial autocorrelation analyses (Kubo
1980). Kubos efforts in furthering GIS research comprise
participation in the GIS Commission of the International
Geographical Union (IGU) from the early 1970s, the
prompt conveying of valuable research information and
leading research results from the West to Japan, and the
forming of the research group Collecting and Process-
ing of Geographic Information within the Association of
Japanese Geographers (AJG) in 1984 (Kubo 1987, 1991).
From 1990, the research group Geographic Information
Systems under the responsibility of Hiroyuki Kohsaka,
and from 2000, the research group Geographic Infor-
mation Science under the chair of Yuji Murayama, took
over those responsibilities (Murayama 2003).
In Japan, the term Geographic Information System
was used from the 1980s. Initially, it was often referred to
as: Area Information System, Map Information System,
Spatial Information System or Computer Mapping,
and familiarity with the term Geographic Information
System was generally weak (Kubo 1980), but became
established by the 1990s. The establishment of this term
also affected the naming of the GIS Association of Japan
(GISA), an academic society that had been founded in
1991 for the deepening of GIS research and its familiar-
ization to society. An increased understanding that GIS
is not simply a tool for visualizing and analyzing spatial
data, but also allows the use of geographic information
in regional policies and urban planning, as well as being
useful in business as a decision support system, further
contributed to the establishment of the term Geographic
Information System (Murayama 2008).

The popularization period

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sis itself was developed at the same time as quantitative GISA promoted the importance of the maintenance of
geography, it took until the 1980s for GIS to be employed large-scale digital maps and created guidelines, while at
in spatial analysis. Hiroyuki Kohsaka, Atsuyuki Okabe
and Teruko Usui were proactively engaged in these new
spatial analysis methodologies. Okabe published studies
about point distribution, Voronoi tessellation, network
analysis, and other topics in international GIS-related
journals, which attracted worldwide attention. Kohsaka
achieved academic contribution in the field of commer-
cial geography, including trade areas, consumer behavior
and area marketing. Usui focused on the use of GIS in
quantitative geography and was the first to identify the
importance of the concept of topological space and the
construction of spatial data models in Japan (Usui 1995).
Motivated by these outputs, GIS research with origi-
nality also increased steadily in the 1990s. Osamu Ni-
shikawas work as a representative in the project Geo-
graphic information system of environmental change due
to modernization from 1990 to 1993 had a particularly
big effect on GIS studies in Japan. It was funded by the
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas
by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science
and Technology of Japan gathered more than 100 physi-
cal and human geographers under one roof, using GIS
as a platform to undertake research focused on environ-
mental change induced by modernization and its impact
in Japan. This project also offered a place for repeated
exchange between physical and human geographers, who
used to have only scarce dialogue between their special-
ized research disciplines.
During the 1990s organizations for GIS research pro-
motion were established. As mentioned above, in 1991
the GIS Association of Japan (GISA) was founded, which
contributed to the promotion of the exchange of vari-
ous disciplines surrounding GIS. It assembled researchers
from diverse realms, such as: geography, urban engineer-
ing, land surveying, cartography, agriculture, forestry,
public health, archeology, and history. Among others,
geographers contributed greatly and played an important
part in the administration of GISA. This is supported by
the fact that of the eight consecutive association presi-
dents from 1991 through 2007, half were geographers
(the term of office for GISA president is two years). GISA
strives for the scientific development of GIS and its popu-
larization in the society by publishing not only the twice
yearly journal, Theory and Application of GIS, but also
papers and proceedings, and a terminology encyclope-
dia. In the wake of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake,

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the same time conducting proposals for the administra- geographers (Murayama 2000). The GIS research in Japan
tion. GISA made an effort to support restoration and has gradually increased its international position. In 2003,
reconstruction, and the geographers contribution was in
providing original GIS data, diligently collected in field-
work. In particular, the GIS-assisted damage databases,
spatial visualization of debris removal, etc., gathered pub-
lic attention. Particularly notable are the activities of a
research group at Nara University, which conducted a
spatio-temporal analysis of the reconstruction process
under the leadership of Teruko Usui (Kohsaka and Mura-
yama 2001).
In the second half of the 1990s geographers and urban
engineers played a leading role in: 1) the creation, deep-
ening, and spreading of geographic information science,
2) the provision of spatial database for research, and 3)
the promotion of collaborative research between indus-
try, government and academia. They also insisted on the
necessity for GIS centers where research could be con-
ducted, which unfolded a nationwide movement for their
establishment. As a result of those activities, in 1998, the
Center for Spatial Information Science (CSIS) was es-
tablished at the University of Tokyo for nationwide joint
use. In the western world, the academic shift from GIS
as a tool towards GIS as a science was accelerating. In
accordance with this trend, CSIS states that geographic
information science is the study of a versatile method
to systematically construct, manage, analyze, synthesize
and communicate natural, social, economic and cultural
attribute data that have been assigned a clearly defined
spatial location and region, which allows deeper opera-
tionalization of this versatile approach in various aca-
demic fields, and continues to promote the research and
education of geographic information science in Japan to
the present day (Okabe 2006a).

The development period

Until the 1990s, GIS research brought forward in the
western world was absorbed as much as possible, but
during the 2000s, mainly young researchers who took an
interest in geographic information science grew, and GIS
research in Japan reached a period of new development.
In March 2003, the Association of Japanese Geographers
(AJG) held a symposium titled How does GIS contribute
to geography?; the findings of which have been pub-
lished as a separate book (Kohsaka and Murayama 2001).
In November 2000, GeoJournal drafted a special edition
(Vol. 52-3) titled The contribution of GIS to geographi-
cal research, which carried twelve articles by Japanese

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the Geographical Review of Japan drafted a special edi- for unintended purposes was alleviated. With the avail-
tion on GIS over two issues (September and October), ability of non-aggregated data, new studies regarding the
which carried eight articles. In 2008, the Journal of Geog-
raphy (Chigaku Zasshi) also drafted a special edition (Vol.
117-2) about GIS. In total it carried twenty articles: six
about GIS development, management, education, and
data maintenance, four about physical geography, six
about human geography, and four about applications in
environmental and area studies (Murayama et al. 2008b).
With a broadening base of GIS research, the number
of large-scale joint academic studies also grew. Influ-
enced by its interdisciplinary foundation, GIS in these
large studies is characterized by tight collaborations with
engineering, informatics, and other such disciplines,
while still having geography at its core. Empirical re-
search projects using GIS in forestry, architecture, urban
engineering, environmental studies, etc., were pursued.
Similarly, a great number of projects were undertaken
in GIS education at universities. At the Japan Society for
the Promotion of Science (JSPS), a number of projects
were started funded by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific
Research: Studies on the development of standard geo-
graphical information science curricula and that of the
sustainable-collaborative web library systems for serving
their contents (principal investigator: Atsuyuki Okabe,
FY2005FY2007); Developing teaching methods of geo-
graphical information science: How to effectively teach
GIS in Universities (principal investigator: Yuji Mu-
rayama, FY2005FY2008); and Research on education
methods and the development of educational materials
for geospatial thinking based on geographic information
science core curricula (principal investigator: Yasushi
Asami, FY2009FY2013) are examples.
In May 2007, three GIS-related laws were issued, which
contributed to the acceleration of GIS studies. The most
important is the Basic act on the advancement of utiliz-
ing geospatial information (Act No. 63). Because of the
enforcement of this law, the environment for the use of
GIS improved rapidly, and the systematic maintenance
of geospatial data, the application for safety, security and
social welfare policies, and the maintenance of GPS made
progress.
The second law is the New statistics act (Act No. 53),
which aimed at converting the conventions of adminis-
trative statistics from statistics for the administration
towards statistics for a society information base. Of par-
ticular interest in the context of GIS was the fact that the
originally forbidden use of micro data (individual data)

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resident population of foreigners and ethnicities became ample, Atsuyuki Okabe was awarded The World Prize
possible (Ishikawa 2011). for the Book of the Year of the Islamic Republic of Iran
The third law is the revision of the Survey act (Act
No. 55). With the limits of map distribution relieved,
it became possible for everybody on the web to submit
basic map information. It also became possible for private
businesses to use base map information for commercial
purposes.

Recent Trends in GIS Research

Previously, Japanese geographers had made efforts to

adopt leading GIS research outputs from various coun-
tries of the West. Today, they publish work with higher
originality worldwide and have increased their inter-
national standing (Wakabayashi 2007). The number of
contributions to international GIS-related journals has
increased, especially by young researchers, as have the
number of Japanese geographers working on the editorial
boards of international journals. Since 2009, an interna-
tional GIS session has become a regular part of the Annu-
al Meeting of the Japan Geoscience Union (JpGU). Also,
in 2011 the international conference Spatial thinking
and geographic information sciences 2011 (STGIS2011)
was held in Tokyo (organized by Prof. Yasushi Asami),
which attracted a large number of international research-
ers and its results have been published in ProcediaSocial
and Behavioral Sciences (Vol. 21 2011). Furthermore, six
papers presented at this conference were compiled into
a special issue of Environment and Planning B (Vol. 39-6,
2012), titled Spatial thinking and geographic informa-
tion science.
English books by Japanese authors also gradually start-
ed to show up. From 2000 onwards, Atsuyuki Okabe
started to issue a steady number of GIS-related publica-
tions, which received worldwide attention (e.g., Okabe
et al. 2000; Boots et al. 2002; Okabe 2004, 2006b; Okabe
and Sugihara 2012). Yuji Murayama also published sev-
eral books (e.g., Murayama and Thapa 2011; Kamusoko
et al. 2011; Murayama 2012), and the results of which
were discussed internationally. Historical GIS became
popular in Japan and several books focusing on Kyoto
were published in English and Japanese (Yano et al. 2007;
Yano et al. 2011). In this connection, the book edited by
Japan Council for Historical GIS Research (2012) is rich
in originality though it is written in Japanese.
It also became common for Japanese researchers to
receive awards at international GIS conferences. For ex-

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by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Okabe feature, MANDARA has implemented very particular
2004). The Division of Spatial Information Science (SIS) functionality and hence, proves to be a convenient tool
at the University of Tsukuba won the Excellence Award
at the 2011 Asia Geospatial Forum, and the Geospatial
World Excellence Awards at the 2012 Geospatial World
Forum. Recently young scholars are active in attend-
ing international conferences. For example, Yohei Kurata
was awarded the Best Full Paper Award at the Interna-
tional Conference on Geographic Information Science
(GIScience) in 2008 (Kurata 2008).
Software that has been developed in the West, such as
ArcGIS, IDRISI and MapInfo, makes up an overwhelm-
ing part of the GIS used for education and research pur-
poses at Japanese universities. However, there also exist a
number of unique software packages that have been de-
veloped in Japan. SANET for example, is software for the
spatial analysis of networks and is globally acclaimed and
used in more than 50 countries. It is also capable of creat-
ing Voronoi polygons, kernel density estimations and cal-
culating Ripleys K-function (Okabe et al. 2006a, 2006b).
SDAM, developed at the Division of Spatial Informa-
tion Science (SIS) at the University of Tsukuba, is a GIS
software that provides a great number of spatial analysis
functions (Murayama and Komaki 2006). It is freeware
that can be used in the statistical analysis language R and
in GeoTool (GIS Engine). It can perform: multivariate
analysis (regression analysis, factor analysis and cluster
analysis), explanatory spatial analysis (ESDA), point pat-
tern analysis (square method, nearest neighbor method
and K-function), spatial autocorrelation analysis (global
Morans I, global Gearys C, Moran plot, local Morans
I, local G statistic, and local G* statistic), spatial grav-
ity analysis (classic gravity model, origin-constraint-type
model, absorption-constraint-type model, and double-
constraint-type model), and geographically weighted re-
gression (GWR), amongst others. The SIS at the Univer-
sity of Tsukuba has also constructed software, Fieldwork
GIS, which allows for the in situ collection and analysis
of spatial data collected by fieldwork (Murayama et al.
2008a), and PopShape GIS: A GIS Tool for Dasymetric
Mapping, which can estimate resident per-building popu-
lations (Lwin and Murayama 2010).
MANDARA, a GIS software, developed by Kenji Tani
at Saitama University, is being used widely in universities
and general education, and has also a large user base in
administration and business. It can read a large number
of existing map data, such as digital national land infor-
mation and spatial base data. With its time series analysis

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for geographers interested in regionalization and the elu- education at all universities by offering technical support,
cidation of regional changes. It can also deal with chang- information exchange and seminars, as well as developing
ing administrative borders caused by municipal mergers,
and changing coastlines as a result of land reclamation
(Tani 2006).

Developments in GIS Education at

Universities

Since the development of GIS as a tool towards GIS as

a science was accomplished by 2000, geographic informa-
tion science began to be taught at universities. Major uni-
versities started to employ teaching staff for a GIS major,
and established curricula for GIS education (Murayama
2009). In the 2000s, courses for teaching geographic in-
formation science became established at the Tokyo Met-
ropolitan University, the University of Tsukuba, Ritsumei-
kan University, Nihon University, Rissho University and
others, to offer academic masters and doctorate degrees
in GIS studies.

GIS core curriculum

In the United States, the National Center for Geo-
graphic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) has been
working tirelessly on the development of a core cur-
riculum since the early 1990s. To embody this further,
in 2006 the Geographic information science and tech-
nology body of knowledge was announced by the Uni-
versity Consortium for Geographic Information Science
(UCGIS). It became a guideline for GIS education and
contributed greatly to the spread of geographic informa-
tion science. In Japan, a group led by Atsuyuki Okabe
from Tokyo University played a leading role in announc-
ing the Japanese version of a GIS core curriculum, namely
the Geographic information sciences body of knowl-
edge (Okabe 2006a). This was the result of three years
research activities funded by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific
Research. Furthermore, in March 2011, a newly revised
version was presented to the public (http://curricula.
csis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/bok201103.pdf ). Hereafter, this was
used as a basis for developing syllabi at all universities,
which was expected to result in an effective GIS educa-
tion. In 2012, a slide set about the use of education in
geographic information science has been opened and put
to practical use in GIS education at various universities
(http://curricula.csis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/slide/).
In the United States, all universities enforcing GIS ed-
ucation have gathered in UCGIS, which supports GIS

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a core curriculum and disseminating teaching materials. result of the advances in GIS and Remote Sensing (RS)
Currently, more than 80 universities all over the United technologies. In Japan, the number of empirical geo-
States are participating in this consortium. A similar or-
ganization has been established in Europe, namely the
Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for
Europe (AGILE), which is also very active. As it was
obvious that the practice of each university dealing indi-
vidually with GIS education would not produce satisfac-
tory results, the establishment of a consortium for GIS
education unifying Japanese universities, following the
examples of UCGIS and AGILE, is desired.

GIS qualification system

It is effective to apply a valid qualification system in
order to give students an incentive to attend lectures.
Among the GIS qualifications that can be gained at Japa-
nese universities are: Assistant Surveyor, by the Japan
Accreditation Board for Engineering Education (JABEE),
and Social Research Expert, by the Japanese Certifica-
tion Board for Social Researcher (JCBSR). In April 2008,
the Association of Japanese Geographers (AJG), as the
accreditation body, also added the qualifications of GIS
Scientist, geared to undergraduate students and Expert
GIS Scientist, geared to graduate masters students. By the
acknowledgement of an achievement verification organ-
ization, and by communicating about curriculum com-
position and student guidance, etc., the network of the
teaching staff organization can be expected to advance. In
order to receive the acknowledgement of an achievement
verification organization for GIS scientists, it is necessary
to establish a lecture course on basic GIS functionality
and training courses for GIS map making and spatial
analysis. Those courses were mainly established at private
universities. The GIS Association of Japan (GISA), as the
organization which established the certification of GIS
Experts and the GIS Education Program, also created the
qualification of Advanced GIS Expert (GIS professional),
which is geared towards business persons (http://www.
gisa-japan.org/gisca/). As a link to related scientific soci-
eties in the field of geography, the Human Geographical
Society of Japan (HGSJ) and the Association of Japanese
Geographers (AJG) joined in the certification of GIS Ex-
perts and the GIS Education Program.

The Future of GIS Research and Geography

Today, GeoComputation shows progress in the pro-

cessing of large amounts of geospatial information as a

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graphical studies involving complex system sciences, such In Japan, as well as in the western world, geographic
as genetic algorithms (GA), cellular automata (CA), and
multi-agent systems (MAS) is steadily growing (Mura-
yama 2012). On top of the extension of processes from
past to present, inductive thinking as a way for prediction
is becoming a valid feature. The use of state-of-the-art
simulation technologies and scenario analyses is not only
limited to spatial forecasting, but can also be introduced
to the fields of spatial governing and spatial management.
Geographers have been able to make achievements in the
research of spatial processes, and from here on, armed
with GIS, they are expected to be actively committed in
the fields of regional policy and urban planning (Mura-
yama et al. 2012).
Geographers have been able to accumulate a great di-
versity of geospatial information by collecting primary
fieldwork data. It is hoped that these valuable geospatial
data are maintained and archived in a systematic manner,
retaining their location information. A clear definition of
units of spatial scale and temporal periods is indispensa-
ble in order to construct highly generic space-time data-
bases. Unfortunately, the task of establishing a methodol-
ogy in this direction is lacking in the field of geography.
Also, it is an urgent issue to construct new techniques
and theories for the acquisition of spatial data. Fieldwork
data collection using GPS-equipped smartphones is a
promising research field where geography could contrib-
ute. A deepening of research regarding the acquisition
of fresh data in real time, in situ analysis, visualization,
distribution and transmission and thus, a method for the
seamless performance of such a series of operations, is
also to be expected (Lwin and Murayama 2007).
Recently, micro spatial data, such as: location informa-
tion from mobile phones equipped with GPS, point-of-
sale (POS) data, personal trip information, individual
statistics and volunteered information provided by citi-
zens, is becoming more and more available. Important
topics are the implementation of empirical studies using
these micro spatial data, together with the establishment
of methods for the empirical spatial analysis of disag-
gregated geographic information (Wakabayashi and Koi-
zumi 2012). A GIS for the visualization and analysis of
disaggregated personal trip data is currently being estab-
lished at the authors research laboratory (http://giswin.
geo.tsukuba.ac.jp/teacher/murayama/projects/persontrip/
index.htm).

Concluding Remarks

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information science is building up a solid position as a Ishikawa, Y. ed. 2011. Mapping foreign residents in Japan. Kyoto:
new scholarly field, connecting geography, cartography,
land surveying, informatics, computational geometry, and
cognitive science, etc., in a coordinated fashion. It has
developed as a domain that integrates humanities and
science by not adhering to existing scientific frameworks,
such as human and social sciences or natural sciences.
Under those circumstances, geography can be regarded as
being the glue that binds various areas of study. Active ex-
change is required especially within the information and
engineering sciences. However, geography cannot show
its presence within geographic information science whilst
it is confined to the accumulation of empirical studies
using GIS. Whether it can bear the core of GIS research
or not, is entirely dependent on its ability to present
original geographical theories and new techniques and
methodologies, particularly related to the collection and
management of geospatial data and spatial analysis and
visualization.
Lastly, the author wants to conclude this paper by
pointing out that ontology and spatial cognition science
are becoming more important. The way in which the
results from cognitive science are incorporated is consid-
ered to become an important key to enhance further the
unifying force of GIS studies, as a realm that attracts the
fascination of researchers from various fields (Murayama
2008). What in the real world should be captured data-
bases, and how? How should geographical information be
visualized and interpreted? Ontology and HumanCom-
puter-Interaction (HCI) are topics that should be tackled
urgently. A society, in which practical use of geographic
information is used to a high degree by anybody capable
of handling GIS, anywhere and at any time, is approach-
ing. Geography has brought together great hopes for the
improvement of the operability and functionality of GIS
and for bearing one part of cognitive science.

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Konstantin

Greger, University of Tsukuba for supporting the transla-
tion of the manuscript.

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