Construction of geo-ontology knowledge base about spatial relations

The spatial relation analysis, query and reasoning in current geographic information systems usually generalize geographic objects into geometric points, lines and polygons. However, in the real world and human´s cognition, geographic objects are not simply geometric objects but spatially distributed objects with geographic semantics. If the geographic entities belong to different types, we may use different words to describe their spatial relationship although their shapes and geometric relationships are exactly the same. Aiming at above phenomenon, this paper analyzes what kinds of semantic information are involved in spatial relationship descriptions and queries. Based on the semantic analysis of geographic relations, an ontological knowledge base is established to store the knowledge of spatial relations between geographic objects. The knowledge base is implemented with Protégé and OWL, and finally is connected to the spatial relation query system.