Below are some GIS textbooks and related materials that I find useful. The list is by no means exhaustive, but might be helpful as a starting point. I have included links for many of them to Amazon for your convenience (these links are not monetized and I receive no income from them).
INTRODUCTION TO GIS
Aronoff, Stan. 1989. Geographic Information Systems: A Management Perspective, WDL Publications, Ottawa.
Bernhardsen, Tor. 2002. Geographic Information Systems, An Introduction, 3rd ed., John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
Bolstad, Paul. 2016. GIS Fundamentals, A First Text on Geographic Information Systems, 5th ed., Eider Press, White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
Chang, Kang-tsung. 2018. Introduction to Geographic Information Systems, 9th ed., McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Toronto.
Chrisman, Nicholas. 2001. Exploring Geographic Information Systems, 2nd ed., John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
Clarke, Keith C. 2011. Getting Started with Geographic Information Systems, 5th ed., Prentice Hall Series in Geographic Information Science, Prentice-Hall Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Clemmer, Gina. 2018. The GIS 20: Essential Skills, 3rd ed., ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Davis, Bruce E. 2001. GIS: A Visual Approach, 2nd ed., OnWord Press, Albany New York.
Delaney, Julie. 2007. Geographical Information Systems, An Introduction, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, New York.
DeMers, Michael N. 2002. GIS Modeling in Raster, John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
DeMers, Michael N. 2008. Fundamentals of Geographic Information Systems, 4th. ed., John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
de Smith, Michael J., Michael F. Goodchild, and Paul A. Longley. 2018. Geospatial Analysis: A Comprehensive Guide to Principles, Techniques and Software Tools, 6th ed., The Winchelsea Press.
Heywood, Ian, Sarah Cornelius, and Steve Carver. 2012. An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems, 4th ed., Pearson Education Limited, Toronto.
Huxhold, William E. 1991. An Introduction to Urban Geographic Information Systems, Oxford University Press, New York.
Jones, Christopher. 1997. Geographical Information Systems and Computer Cartography, Addison Wesley Longman Limited, Edinburgh Gate, England.
Kennedy, Michael. 2013. Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS, 3rd ed., John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Konecny, Gottfried. 2014. Geoinformation, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry and Geographic Information Systems, 2nd ed., Taylor and Francis, New York.
Lo, C.P., and Albert K.W. Yeung, 2007. Concepts and Techniques of Geographic Information Systems, 2nd ed., Pearson Education Canada, Inc., Toronto.
Longley, Paul A., Michael F. Goodchild, David J. Maguire, and David W. Rhind. 2015. Geographic Information Systems and Science, 4th ed., John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
Mitchell, Andy. 1999. The ESRI Guide to GIS Analysis, Volume 1: Geographic Patterns & Relationships, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Law, Michael, and Amy Collins. 2018. Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop, 5th ed., Esri Press, Redlands, California.
Price, Maribeth, 2018. Mastering ArcGIS, 8th ed., McGraw Hill Higher Education, Toronto.
Star, Jeffrey, and John Estes. 1990. Geographic Information Systems, An Introduction, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
ADVANCED GIS AND/OR SPATIAL ANALYSIS
Bailey, Trevor C., and Anthony C. Gatrell. 1995. Interactive Spatial Data Analysis, Pearson Education Limited, Toronto.
Burrough, Peter A., and Rachael A. McDonnell. 2015. Principles of Geographical Information Systems, 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, Toronto.
Clarke, Keith C., Bradley O. Parks, and Michael P. Crane (eds.). 2002. Geographic Information Systems and Environmental Modeling, Fourth International Conference on Integrating Geographic Information Systems and Environmental Modeling, Banff, Canada, September, 2000, Prentice-Hall Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. 1994. Understanding GIS, The ARC/INFO Method, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.
Fortin, Marie-Josée, and Mark Dale. 2014. Spatial Analysis, A Guide for Ecologists, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, New York.
Fotheringham, A. Stewart, Chris Brunsdon, and Martin Charlton. 2000. Quantitative Geography, Perspectives on Spatial Data Analysis, Sage Publications, London.
Fotheringham, A. Stewart, Chris Brunsdon, and Martin Charlton. 2002. Geographically Weighted Regression, The Analysis of Spatially Varying Relationships, John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
Fotheringham, A. Stewart, and Peter A. Rogerson. 2009. The SAGE Handbook of Spatial Analysis, SAGE, Los Angeles.
Longley, Paul A., and Michael Batty (eds.). 2003. Advanced Spatial Analysis, The CASA Book of GIS, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Maguire, David J., Michael Batty, and Michael Goodchild (eds.). 2005. GIS, Spatial Analysis, and Modeling, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Mitchell, Andy. 2005. The ESRI Guide to GIS Analysis, Vol. 2: Spatial Measurements and Statistics, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
O’Sullivan, David, and David J. Unwin. 2010. Geographic Information Analysis, 2nd ed., John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
Stillwell, John, and Graham Clarke (eds.). 2004. Applied GIS and Spatial Analysis, John Wiley and Sons, West Sussex, England.
Waller, Lance A., and Carol A. Gotway. 2004. Applied Spatial Statistics for Public Health Data, John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Wong, Davis W.S., and Jay Lee. 2005. Statistical Analysis of Geographic Information, with ArcView GIS and ArcGIS, John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
APPLICATIONS OF GIS
Boyles, David. 2002. GIS Means Business, Vol. 2, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Greene, Richard P. 2011. Exploring the Urban Community, A GIS Approach, 2nd ed., Pearson Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Grimshaw, David J. 2000. Bringing Geographical Information Systems into Business, 2nd ed., John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
Harris, Richard, Peter Sleight, and Richard Webber. 2005. Geodemographics, GIS and Neighbourhood Targeting, John Wiley and Sons Canada, Etobicoke.
Peters, Alan, and Heather MacDonald, 2004. Unlocking the Census with GIS, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Stillwell, John, and Graham Clarke (eds.). 2004. Applied GIS and Spatial Analysis, John Wiley and Sons, Toronto
Waller, Lance A., and Carol A. Gotway. 2004. Applied Spatial Statistics for Public Health Data, John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Wing, Michael G., and Pete Bettinger. 2008. Geographic Information Systems, Applications in Natural Resource Management, Oxford University Press, Toronto.
CARTOGRAPHY
Brewer, Cynthia A. 2015. Designing Better Maps, A Guide for GIS Users, 2nd ed., ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Campbell, John. 2001. Map Use & Analysis, 4th ed., McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Toronto.
Dent, Borden, D., Torguson, Jeff, and Thomas W. Hodler, 2008. Cartography, Thematic Map Design, 6th ed., McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Toronto.
Jones, Christopher. 1997. Geographical Information Systems and Computer Cartography, Addison Wesley Longman Limited, Edinburgh Gate, England.
Kimerling A. Jon, Aileen R. Buckley, Phillip C. Muehrcke, and Juliana O. Muehrcke. 2016. Map Use: Reading, Analysis, Interpretation, 8th ed., ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Kraak, Menno-Jan, and Ferjan Ormeling. 2010. Cartography, Visualization of Spatial Data, 3rd ed., The Guilford Press, New York.
Maher, Margaret M. 2013. Lining Up Data in ArcGIS, A Guide to Map Projections, 2nd ed., ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Peterson, Gretchen N. 2014. GIS Cartography, A Guide to Effective Map Design, 2nd ed., CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, New York.
Robinson, Arthur H., Joel L. Morrison, Phillip C. Muehrcke, Jon A. Kimerling, and Stephen C. Guptill. 1995. Elements of Cartography, 6th ed., John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
Slocum, Terry A., Robert B. McMaster, Fritz C. Kessler, and Hugh H. Howard. 2009. Thematic Cartography and Geographic Visualization, 3rd ed., Prentice-Hall Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
DATABASE DESIGN
Arctur, David, and Michael Zeiler. 2004. Designing Geodatabases, Case Studies in GIS Data Modeling, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Shekhar, Shashi, and Sanjay Chawla. 2003. Spatial Databases, A Tour, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Yeung, Albert K.W., and G. Brent Hall. 2007. Spatial Database Systems; Design Implementation and Project Management, The GeoJournal Library vol. 87, Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Zeiler, Michael. 2010. Modeling Our World, The ESRI Guide to Geodatabase Concepts, 2nd ed., ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
GIS CURRICULUM
DiBiase, David, Michael DeMers, Ann Johnson, Karen Kemp, Ann Taylor Luck, Brandon Plewe, and Elizabeth Wentz. 2006. Geographic Information Science and Technology Body of Knowledge, Association of American Geographers, Washington, DC.
GIS IMPLEMENTATION AND/OR PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Huxhold, William E., and Allan G. Levinsohn. 1995. Managing Geographic Information System Projects, Oxford University Press, New York.
Korte, George B., 2001. The GIS Book, How to Implement, Manage, and Assess the Value of Geographic Information Systems, 5th ed., Onword Press, Albany, New York.
Thomas, Christopher, and Milton Ospina, 2004. Measuring Up, The Business Case for GIS, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Thomas, Christopher, and Brian Parr, 2012. Measuring Up, The Business Case for GIS, volume 2, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
Tomlinson, Roger, 2013. Thinking About GIS, Geographic Information System Planning for Managers, 5th ed., ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
GIS FOR HISTORY
Knowles, Anne Kelly (ed.). 2002. Past Time, Past Place, GIS for History, ESRI Press, Redlands, California.
HISTORY OF GIS
Foresman, Timothy W. (ed.). 1998. The History of Geographic Information Systems, Perspectives from the Pioneers, Prentice Hall Series in Geographic Information Science, Prentice-Hall Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
REMOTE SENSING
Campbell, James B., and Randophe H. Wynne. 2011. Introduction to Remote Sensing, 5th ed., The Guilford Press, New York, New York.
Jensen, John R. 2015. Introductory Digital Image Processing, A Remote Sensing Perspective, 4th ed., Prentice Hall Series in Geographic Information Science, Prentice-Hall Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Konecny, Gottfried. 2014. Geoinformation, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry and Geographic Information Systems, 2nd ed., Taylor and Francis, New York.
Lillesand, Thomas M., Kiefer, Ralph W., and Jonathan Chipman. 2015. Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation, 7th ed., John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
Mather, Paul M. 2011. Computer Processing of Remotely-Sensed Images, An Introduction, 4th ed., John Wiley and Sons, Toronto.
STATISTICS
Rogerson, Peter A. 2014. Statistical Methods for Geography: A Student’s Guide, 4th ed., Sage Publications, London.
WRITING
Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Research, 4th ed., The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Northey, Margot, Dianne Draper, and David B. Knight. 2015. Making Sense in Geography and Environmental Studies, A Student’s Guide to Research, and Writing, 6th ed., Oxford University Press, Toronto.
Turabian, Kate L., Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2018. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 9th ed., The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Inclusion of any link on this page does not represent an endorsement on the part of the author or of the University of Toronto.
Roger Tomlinson’s book on GIS design activities has just been released in a 4th edition by ESRI Press.
Thanks Duane – I have updated the entry. I think I still have the first edition, so will have to see about getting the latest one.
Great list of books .. I have a question Is it possible to help me?
I’m trying to research on the topic of his master to graduate and confused .. how Aozv geographic information systems within the theme of the message in my field of educational planning .. Is there a distance learning course in this specialization? Help me please
I’m glad you like the list! If I’m interpreting your question correctly, I don’t know of any distance learning course on educational planning for GIS. If someone out there knows of one, please let us know. Sorry I can’t be of more help. -Don
Don,
While this is a new etext (see below), I was wondering if you have reviewed it or heard any feedback? I am looking for an easy to read introductory GIS text for my GIS course. I have used Bolstad, but found this to be too much for my students.I am currently using GIS Concepts and ArcGIS Methods, 4th Edition by David M. Theobald, Ph.D. While I like this text, it is outdated and has a few other shortcomings.
Introductory Geographic Information Systems John R. Jensen; Ryan R. Jensen
http://www.coursesmart.com/introductory-geographic-information-systems/john-r-jensen-ryan-r-jensen/dp/9780321675736
Hi Bryan,
I have to confess I’m not familiar with either of those titles, so thanks for bringing them to my attention. I just downloaded a digital copy of the Jensen and Jensen and had a quick look through it, so I can at least give you my first impressions.
Interface: first off, the quality of the interface is pretty lousy. I can’t use the page up or page down keys on my keyboard, which results in a lot of clicking to browse back and forth. The table of contents on the left is okay, but can’t be resized. The text and figures are fuzzy (and the watermarks are a bit distracting). Most of the figures are quite good, but in others they went a little overboard with the drop shadows (Fig. 5-1). I was disappointed to find out that the only way to read it offline is with the Firefox browser – no Chrome, and no tablet version. It’s nice to see publishers providing an e-book option, but they’re going to have to do better than this. If you’ve seen what Apple is touting for their new textbook model, it is miles ahead of this. There are fair criticisms of their business approach to it, but in terms of design, it’s pretty slick.
As for the actual content of the book – there appears to be a fairly good breadth in topics. I was happy to see topics like descriptive and spatial statistics included. When I get a new GIS textbook, I always check the section on coordinate systems and projections, because these are hard to explain well. This book seems to do a good job, with a good writing style suitable to an introductory audience. I was impressed to see Tissot’s Indicatrix mentioned (many books leave it out), but I felt like it needed more explanation and could have been used more effectively to help explain the different types and areas of distortion earlier in that chapter. Generally there seems to be a good balance of breadth vs. depth and I like the writing style.
I haven’t gotten a copy of Theobald, but may not bother if, as you say, it’s getting pretty out of date.
I hope my comments are of some help – always interested in discussing GIS books!
-Don
Really very good information on your site for those people want to enter in GIS field
Thanks Muhammad, that’s really nice to hear!
Really very good information on your site for those people want to enter in GIS field
Happy New Year Don! And.. come back to U of T soon, we miss ya <3
Aw thanks, and Happy New Year to you too!
Sir Tomorrow I have Exam of GIS. I need The GIS book by The George Korte for studying. I am not able to find it, Can you please arrange pdf of it for me. Please
Sorry, I don’t have a PDF version of that textbook but, even if I did, sending it to you would be a copyright violation so I wouldn’t be allowed to. I hope your exam goes well.
Dear Mr. Don Boyes,
Thank you very much for sharing this helpful list of GIS books. You have just done a good job.
Please be informed that I have graduated in Geography and Environment in 2011. I have forgot much of GIS. I can remember only a few concepts. Now I would like to develop expertise in GIS. How can I start? What book I should learn first and free online distance learning course I should take. Please suggest me.
God bless you.
I’m glad you found it be helpful! I don’t think it’s really necessary to buy a book to get started, as there are many online resources available, such as The Nature of Geographic Information from Penn State: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/natureofgeoinfo/ and the online documentation from Esri for their software: http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/. There are also free online courses, such as Esri’s MOOCs: https://www.esri.com/mooc.
I hope that gives you something to start with.
-Don
Thanks, teacher for sharing nice information about GIS. it will help us a lot. Your way of teaching is awesome and conceptual.
You’re very welcome, and thanks!