Book Review
Name of the book: A Primer of GIS: Fundamental Geographic and Cartographic Concepts
Author: Francis Harvey
A Primer of GIS: Fundamental Geographic and Cartographic Concepts provided broad
planning for afterward work with geographic information, in any case of background. The book is
organized into four parts. The first part, which consist of the first three chapters, talks about the
basic concepts of cartography and how it is utilized to communicate and represent geographic
information. The most interesting part was the second part which was from chapter 4 till chapter
9 which was discussing about several topics such as projection, coordinate systems, database, and
geospatial data sources moreover, this part had a lot of useful information about the basics of GIS
and its fundamentals. The third part from chapter 10 till chapter 12 dived into more details about
cartographic representation and additionally explores map culture. The misuse of maps. And
mapping systems. The final part of the book, which were the last 3 chapters, talked about the
analysis of geographic information, biostatistics, and mentioned the future of GIS.
Throughout the book, every chapter have its own summary of the topics and information
presented in that chapter, also with questions and answers, chapter readings, web resources, and
exercises which attracted me to continue reading this book. As a beginner in GIS, this text book
provided me with the knowledge I need to bridge the gap between the conceptual and practical in
GIS and helped me to understand the maps much better. The book prepares students to understand
and work with geographic information system by offering essential theories, concepts, and skills.
At the end of my review, this book introduces the fundamental of spatial geographic
information and helps the reader to understand the concepts and the methods discussed with the
existence of the questions and answers at the end of each chapter, and as a beginner for GIS I
recommend reading this book.