Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (4): 621-635.doi: 10.11947/j.AGCS.2025.20240468

• Review • Previous Articles    

Large language model-driven GIS analysis: methods, applications, and prospects

Huayi WU1,2(), Zhangxiao SHEN1, Shuyang HOU1(), Jianyuan LIANG1, Anqi ZHAO1, Haoyue JIAO3, Zhipeng GUI4, Xuefeng GUAN1   

  1. 1.State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Survey, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
    2.Collaborative Innovation Center of Geospatial Technology, Wuhan 430079, China
    3.School of Resource and Environmental Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
    4.School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
  • Received:2024-10-08 Published:2025-05-30
  • Contact: Shuyang HOU E-mail:wuhuayi@whu.edu.cn;whuhsy@whu.edu.cn
  • About author:WU Huayi (1966—), male, PhD, professor, majors in geographic information service, analysis, mining and large language models. E-mail: wuhuayi@whu.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    The National Natural Science Foundation of China(41930107)

Abstract:

The rapid development of large language models (LLMs) provide a new approach for GIS analysis, leading to the large language model-driven GIS analysis technical architecture (LLM4GIS). Based on the latest research up to October 2024, this paper reviews the evolution of GIS analysis and summarizes the LLM4GIS technical architecture from 3 aspects: application modes, datasets and evaluation methods. It also summarizes the research progress of LLM in GIS analysis tasks such as knowledge question-answering, knowledge extraction, spatiotemporal reasoning, and analyzing and modeling. Finally, the paper prospects the future research directions of GIS4LLM in 5 aspects: collaborative understanding of multimodal spatio-temporal data, balancing generalization with depth, enhancing interpretability and credibility, transitioning to embodied intelligence and edge intelligence, and the development of intelligent and universal GIS analysis. This paper provides inspiration for achieving mutual empowerment between LLM4GIS and GIS4LLM.

Key words: large language model, GIS analysis, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, fine-tuning, agent, LLM4GIS, GIS4LLM

CLC Number: