A Study on Geospatial Industry Size in China

With the development of its economy in China, the demand for geospatial applications in various fields has been greatly increased in recent years. And the geospatial Industry has been emerged as new and active factor in information service sector. During the past ten years, thousands of companies and institutes have involved in the business for technology development and provide services. It is important both for the government and business managers to understand the general situation of the industry, such as its size and work population, etc.A research was carried out for the geospatial industry with the support of the State Bureau of Mapping and Surveying (SBMS) of China recently. Within the research, we have conducted an industrial survey with the assistant of SBMS, and interviewed key players in the industry, and through documentary study and analysis, and finally we obtain some basic data of the China’s geospatial industry. In 2006, the geospatial industry of China, including the disciplines of surveying, mapping, remote sensing, photogrammetry, geographic information systems and car navigation, was over 40 billion Yuan (about $5.3 billion). And there were over 10,000 companies and institutes with at least of 300,000 people working in this industry. The study analyzes the geospatial industry of China in a wide range based on the study.