Evolution of Geographic Information Systems research front using information visualizing network

This paper studies the development of GIS from a new point of view, which both from the accumulation of GIS scientific articles and the evolution process of GIS using co-citation analysis. After 10 years’ slow development from 1977, the number of GIS scientific literature began to increase rapidly since the early 1990s. By using the newly developed information visualization technology, the authors make Author Co-citation Analysis (ACA) and Document Co-citation Analysis (DCA) for 12,417 GIS scientific articles indexed in SCI-Expanded, SSCI, A&HCI. The result reveals the evolution process of GIS from intellectual base to several application fronts: hydrology, land use planning, landslide hazard, landscape ecology, when these applications in engineering areas also accelerate development of GIS. The pivotal authors and literature in the evolution process of GIS from intellectual base to applied fronts are also detected by the visualization of ACA and DCA of GIS scientific literature.