Geocoding is a term you will hear very often once you begin using and learning about GIS. It refers to the process of adding a location or spatial reference to data. Say you have a membership list with demographic info on all your clients, donors or supporters or even of service locations or animal sightings, any attribute that relates to the spatial position can be used to geocode your information and enable you to map it.

In the table above the address, state and zip attributes are spatial references- we can use them to find the exact coordinates of the person or feature we have listed. If you only have the zipcode for a set of data then you still can turn your tables into mappable information, just with a different level of precision. See the Thematic Mapping example for more information on this method.

We have a full tutorial on how to use a great, free geocoding tool to convert your existing datasets into spatial data ready for use in your GIS program here, the alternatives are to use the geocoding function in your GIS program if you have it (may require street or property data you do not have) or to use Batch Geocode- an online system that is very powerful and free also.