Geographic Information Systems and Its Applications in Marketing Literature

Abstract

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are the systems that store location based data and analyze them. In this study, GIS is defined and its importance and functions are described. Usage of GIS in marketing area is explained in details and finally number of academic publications about GIS in general and in marketing literature for decades are analyzed through five different and some of the mostly used databases in social sciences, which are Ebsco, ProQuest, Sage, Springer and Science Direct. Since the importance and usage of GIS in marketing applications and literature increases, however its ratio in total GIS literature is not sufficient yet.