根据我们一年来对“数字地球”的研究,从地理信息与信息技术发展和信息化社会的角度出发,系统地介绍了“数字地球”涉及的研究内容、关键技术、应用前景等问题,比较客观地阐明了“数字地球”的相关内容。

Since the Digital Earth been advanced by Al Gore—the vice presidentof USAon Jan.31 1998, the scientists, entrepreneurs and politicians of many countries have responsed actively to it, they all proposed a digital earth from their own point of view, but all of them didn'tgive a system and overall vision.Based on the development of geographic information processing and information technology and the requirement of information society, a system and relatively overall description of digital earth is given in this paper, the research contents, key technologies and application prospect are covered.In this way, a relatively objective description of digital earth is given.