The history of GIS remotes until the 18th century when John snow’s 1854 map depicting cholera in London, but in the early 20th century a new technique was developed the “photo lithography” which consists in separate maps in different layers. It was not until 1967 when the first true operational GIS in Ottawa operated by the federal department of energy, mines and resources. Developed by Roger Tomlinson and was used to store, analyze and manipulate data collected from the Canada land inventory.

   Pictures courtesy of :erg.usgs.gov & www.epa.gov