拓扑关系是GIS中空间目标之间最基本也是最重要的关系之一，在空间数据建模、空间查询、分析、推理、制图综合、图像检索和相似性分析等过程中起着重要的作用。在综合研究空间关系文献基础上，从方法论的角度论述了精确和不精确空间目标间拓扑关系的描述方法及其最新进展，并简要分析了拓扑关系在GIS空间查询、推理和分析中的应用。

Topological relationship is one of the most important theoretical topics related to GIS modeling, and it plays a key role in many geo-technical fields such as spatial data modeling, spatial query, spatial analysis, spatial reasoning, and cartographic generalization. To motivate further research and applications of the theory, this paper reviews the formalisms and formal models of topological relations. First, the approaches that describe topological relations under certainty are briefly examined. Then the developing progress toward topological relations with uncertainties is explored in terms of research methodologies, including broad boundary approach, fuzzy set approach, random set approach, and rough set approach. Moreover, some applications of the theory in spatial query, spatial analysis and spatial reasoning, are basically introduced. Finally, several issues are highlighted for future investigations.