I just wanted to draw attention to this great set of videos that give a great overview of one of the first large scale Geographical Information Systems, in this case the Canada Geographic Information System (CGIS). Dr Roger Tomlinson was the initiator, planner and director of this for the time very ambitious project, which meant that he has gone down in history as the “father” of GIS.  I feel quite proud to note that he wrote his PhD thesis here at University College London!

From the Wikipedia article:

The Canada Geographic Information System (CGIS) was developed in the 1960s and 1970s to assist in regulatory procedures of land-use management and resource monitoring. At that time, Canada was beginning to realize problems associated with its seemingly endless boundaries, in combination with natural resource availability. The government therefore decided to launch a national program to assist in management and inventory of its resources. The simple automated computer processes designed to store and process large amounts of data enabled Canada to begin a national land-use management program and become a foremost promoter of geographic information systems (GIS).