A Primer of Geographic Databases Based on Chorems

The goal of this paper is not to present outcomes of research, but rather present a new research plan in the use of chorems in geographic information systems. Created by R. Brunet, chorems are a schematic representation of a territory. Presently, geographic decision-makers are not totally satisfied by conventional cartography, essentially because they want to know where and what are the problems. And so chorems appear as an interesting approach to unveil geographic problems, and so to help decision makers understand their territory, their structure and their evolution. After having given the definition and presented some applications of chorems, we show how chorems can be discovered by spatial data mining, can help decision making, and also how chorem maps can be a novel approach to visually entry a geographic database or datawarehouse. Comparing with the Ben Shneiderman’s approach, chorems can give an overview of the territory; then by zooming and filtering, and sub-chorem maps can be generated for smaller territories. Finally a list of barriers to overcome is given as main landmarks for a new research program in order to design new kind of geographic information systems or spatial decision support systems.