地理信息系统是国家空间数据基础设施建设的重要组成部分，对国民经济建设和国家安全有着重要的意义，文中总结了GIS软件的发展历史与技术特点，结合IT技术的发展，指出了现有软件存在的不足，并分析了技术原因，根括了第四代GIS软件的研究目标和技术体系，提出了发展我国第四代GIS软件步骤的建议。

GIS is an important aspect of NSDI. It will directly and deeply affect the national economy construction and national safety. Comparing the progress of IT, the progress history and technical characteristics of GIS software are concluded in this paper. Also, the weakness of existing GIS software is pointed out and the technical reasons are analyzed. Furthermore, this paper presents the research objective and technology architecture of 4 th generation GIS software. The layer-oriented processing should be changed to spatial objects and their relationship-oriented. The synchronization multi user spatial data processing mechanism should be established. The 3-dimension spatial data model should be studied. Spatial data mining ability should be increased. Also, the 4 th generation GIS should manage and process mass spatial data up to TB level and should support VR presentation. The steps of developing 4 th generation GIS software in China are suggested in this paper.