Inactive Tutor answered • 8d
The key function of geographic information systems, or GIS is to link data to a geography. In early days of my professional career, we would map census data at the neighborhood level, and display it on a map. We could draw radii or even drive time polygons around a point, such as a store location, and pull the data for that radii or drive time. This allowed us to build segments of our customers for each of our stores.
SQL has several functions for this, and some flavors of SQL excel even more. The involve some data, such as ZIP code data, and of course a list of ZIP codes and some kind of boundary file which are joined and then displayed. Other GIS analyses could include dropping a latitude and longitude for say every customer on a map, and using formulas to determine the density of the dots (dot density maps) or even display these dots or points inside of boundaries to get an idea of how many customers fall within say a ZIP code or custom boundary.
