National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis

This is a report on a workshop entitled "Languages of Spatial Relations", held in Goleta and Montecito, California, January 15-19, 1989. The meeting, and this report, represent parts of Research Initiative #2, "Languages of Spatial Relations", of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA).

The Specialist Meeting reported on in this document brought together geographers, cognitive linguists, computer scientists, engineers, and others in three days of interdisciplinary discussions on the representation of geographic space-- representation in language, in thought, and in computers. One theme of the meeting was that geographic information systems (GIS) must have at least some capabilities to deal with natural language.

This report is primarily in the form of a transcript of the meeting, reporting what was said, and focussing on discussions and debates. Appended to this report are three essays submitted after the meeting by participants. A list of participants also is included.