About Journal of Geo-Information Science

Journal of Geo-Information Science

The Journal of Geo-Information Science is a Chinese-language scholarly journal, known in Chinese as Diqiu Xinxi Kexue Xuebao, published by Science Press in Beijing under the direction of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It carries ISSN 1560-8999 and is sponsored by the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences together with the Geographical Society of China. The journal was established in 1996 by academician Chen Shupeng under the name Geo-Information, was renamed Journal of Geo-Information Science in 2009, and has been published monthly since 2015. Its editor-in-chief is recorded as Xu Guanhua, and its co-sponsors include state key laboratories at the sponsoring institute, Nanjing Normal University and Capital Normal University. The journal covers geographic information science, remote sensing and spatial data, and it has been indexed in Scopus since 2017, with Scopus coverage recorded as 2017 to 2025 in current listings. It is one of China's principal periodicals for the theory and application of geographic information systems and Earth observation, and it should be distinguished from the English-language Journal of Geodesy and Geoinformation Science, a separate Beijing title profiled elsewhere in this directory.

Founding by Chen Shupeng

The journal's founding is inseparable from the career of Chen Shupeng (1920-2008), the academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences widely described as the founder of remote sensing and geographic information system studies in China. Chen graduated from Zhejiang University in 1941, received his master's degree there in 1947 and joined the former Institute of Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1950, a predecessor of the present sponsoring institute. In the 1950s he promoted the compilation of national atlases of China; in the 1960s he initiated aerial photo interpretation and computer-aided mapping; in the 1970s he organised airborne remote sensing experiments on natural resources and the urban environment; and in the 1980s he led the standardisation of China's resources and environment information system and founded the State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, serving as its first director. He was elected a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1980. In 1994 he proposed the research concept of the geo-information mechanism, arguing that geographic information systems were moving from data acquisition and database management toward simulation, analysis and prediction. When he established the journal in 1996, initially under the name Geo-Information, he gave that emerging field a dedicated Chinese-language forum at the moment when GIS and remote sensing were becoming central tools of Chinese geography.

Renaming and development

The journal was published under its original name, Geo-Information, from 1996 until 2009, when it was renamed Journal of Geo-Information Science. Journal histories note that it has been in regular publication since 2002 and that it moved to monthly publication in 2015, a frequency increase that signals growth in submissions and in the size of the research community it serves. The 2009 renaming mattered conceptually as well as administratively: it aligned the title with the discipline name geo-information science, the field Chen Shupeng had helped to define, and it distinguished the journal's scientific ambitions from trade or technical publications about GIS software. Monthly publication since 2015 places the journal among the more frequent Chinese geography periodicals and requires a substantial editorial operation, with a continuous flow of peer-reviewed papers on geographic information theory, remote-sensing methods and spatial analysis. The journal's endurance across three decades, from the early commercialisation of GIS in China to the era of big Earth data, makes its archive a record of how Chinese geographic information research matured.

Sponsors and editorial leadership

The journal is directed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and sponsored by the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Geographical Society of China. The institute, based in Beijing, is one of China's largest geography research organisations and the institutional home of the State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, which Chen Shupeng founded. Directory records add that co-sponsorship comes from state key laboratories at that institute, at Nanjing Normal University and at Capital Normal University, spreading the journal's institutional base across three major centres of Chinese GIS research. The editor-in-chief is recorded as Xu Guanhua, an academician associated with remote sensing and Earth observation policy in China. Sponsorship by a national academy institute and a national learned society, combined with leadership by a senior academician, places the journal in the upper tier of Chinese scientific periodicals, where editorial boards are expected to set research agendas as well as to screen manuscripts. The Geographical Society of China's involvement also links the journal to the wider geographical community, beyond GIS specialists alone.

Scope and subject coverage

The journal covers geographic information science, remote sensing and spatial data, and its Scopus subject classification spans Computers in Earth Sciences, Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous), Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science Applications and Information Systems. That classification captures the journal's position at the junction of geography and computing. Typical subject matter includes geographic information systems theory, spatial data structures and databases, remote-sensing image processing and interpretation, spatial analysis and modelling, cartography and visualisation, and applications of geospatial data to resources, environment and land management. The artificial intelligence category reflects the growing share of papers applying machine learning to Earth-observation data, a trend visible across geospatial publishing worldwide. Because the journal is published in Chinese, it serves as a primary channel through which Chinese GIS methods, national spatial data infrastructure research and domestic application studies enter the scholarly record, while English abstracts make individual papers discoverable to international readers through Scopus. Its scope overlaps with, but is broader in computing content than, traditional geography journals, and narrower and more method-focused than general Earth-science titles.

Geo-information science as a discipline

Understanding the journal requires understanding the discipline it names. Geo-information science studies how geographic information is acquired, represented, analysed and communicated. Chen Shupeng's concept of the geo-information mechanism, proposed in 1994, treated the flows of geographic information through Earth systems as an object of scientific study in their own right, and his later writing connected geo-information science to the Digital Earth vision popularised internationally in 1998. Chinese researchers developed these ideas alongside national programmes in resources and environment information systems, land surveying and satellite Earth observation. The journal founded on those ideas has therefore carried both theoretical papers on spatial information and applied papers tied to Chinese national needs: flood-damage assessment systems of the kind Chen designed for the Yellow and Yangtze river basins, land-use monitoring from satellite imagery, and environmental information systems for government. Papers citing the journal in later research, for example studies of geomorphological cartography published in its pages in 2009, show its role as a venue where Chinese mapping science discussed its own methods. The journal's data-publishing record also reflects the discipline's data emphasis: in rankings of data impact for journals partnering with the Global Change Research Data Publishing and Repository, the Journal of Geo-Information Science placed in the Q2 group with a comprehensive data impact score of 133.38 for 2018-2022.

Indexing and standing

The journal is published by Science Press, China's largest scientific publisher, and is indexed in Scopus with coverage recorded from 2017 to 2025. SCImago data place it in the second quartile for Computers in Earth Sciences and Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous), and in the third quartile for Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science Applications and Information Systems, with a SCImago Journal Rank of 0.337 reported in recent listings. SciJournal's summary of the Scopus-based metrics reports an H-index of 31 and a rising impact trend between 2020 and 2025. These indicators describe a solidly established national journal with growing international visibility rather than a new title: Scopus indexing since 2017 means its papers are tracked in global citation databases, while its Chinese language and Beijing sponsorship keep its centre of gravity in the domestic research system. The journal is also recognised within China's own evaluation frameworks as a core periodical in its field, consistent with its academy sponsorship and its place in the Chinese core science and technology journal environment.

Relationship to other Chinese geospatial journals

China publishes several geospatial periodicals, and the distinctions among them matter for readers and librarians. The Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica is the Chinese-language journal of surveying and mapping in the narrower geodetic sense and has been covered separately in this directory. The Journal of Geodesy and Geoinformation Science, founded in 2018 and published in English by Surveying and Mapping Press, addresses international readers and is likewise a separate title. The Journal of Geo-Information Science occupies the geographic information and remote-sensing space, with its roots in the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research and in Chen Shupeng's research programme. Its ISSN, 1560-8999, its publisher, Science Press, and its Chinese title, Diqiu Xinxi Kexue Xuebao, are the reliable identifiers. Confusion is possible because English translations of Chinese titles vary, and some aggregator websites attach misleading names or scopes to the title; the identifiers above, together with the sponsorship and founding history, settle the journal's identity.

Readership and contribution

The journal's readers are primarily researchers and graduate students in geographic information science, remote sensing, cartography and spatial analysis, together with professionals in surveying, land management and environmental monitoring who follow methodological research. For the Chinese research system, the journal performs several functions at once: it is a prestige outlet for GIS research groups at academy institutes and universities, an archive of Chinese-language methodological development that complements English-language publication, and a forum in which national application programmes report their information-system results. Its monthly frequency since 2015 and its Scopus presence since 2017 indicate sustained demand from authors. International readers encounter the journal mainly through Scopus records and English abstracts, which is precisely the discovery route its indexing was designed to support. The journal also preserves the intellectual lineage of its founder: Chen Shupeng's ideas about geo-information mechanisms and Digital Earth remain reference points in Chinese geospatial science, and the journal he founded in 1996 continues to publish the field he named.

Place in the directory

In the WorldNM directory, the Journal of Geo-Information Science is classified in the magazines category, the directory's grouping for periodicals, and is located in Beijing, Beijing, China. Its profile rests on a compact set of well-attested facts: founded in 1996 by Chen Shupeng as Geo-Information, renamed in 2009, monthly since 2015, sponsored by the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research and the Geographical Society of China, published by Science Press, edited under Xu Guanhua, and indexed in Scopus since 2017. Around those facts sits a larger, equally documented story about the institutionalisation of geographic information science in China, from national atlases and airborne experiments to satellite data and artificial intelligence. The journal is therefore both a working research periodical and a historical artefact of the discipline's formation, and it is recorded here on that basis.