Tourist mature destinations as complex spaces. Notes about the elaboration process of an atlas of Costa del Sol Sergio J. Reyes Corredera Universidad de Málaga, ETS Arquitectura, Málaga, España. e-mail: sergioreyes@geografosdeandalucia.org Nuria Nebot Gómez de Salazar Universidad de Málaga, ETS Arquitectura, Málaga, España. e-mail: nurianebot@uma.es Mª Dolores Sierra Solís Universidad de Málaga, ETS Arquitectura, Málaga, España. e-mail: marilo.eam@uma.es Abstract This text wants to convey the experience of the process of developing a contemporary tourist atlas. The following will describe the regulations that affect the standardization of cartographic sources in nature, the process of liberation and free acquisition in Europe. On the other hand, describes the treatment processes and spatial information obtained indirectly, and the problems attached. All these spatial databases are treated or processed reinterpreted using GIS software. The study area analyzed is the region of the Costa del Sol, located in the province of Malaga in southern Spain. Keywords: Architecture, GIS, Urbanism, Tourism. 1. Introduction Atlas of the Costa del Sol was developed through the bet by the School of Architecture of Málaga in tourist materia and the excepctional support of Junta de Andalucía to put in work the research area of that young school. For the preparation of Atlas had a multidisciplinary team, which became, later, a research group: Al>tour (www.altour.uma.es ). This group has their origin in the elaboration process of Liquid Tourism work, published on the before webside between parentheses and pending publication by the UPC (Polytechnic University of Catalonia) Editorial. This work marked the approach of the research, carried out by architects and planners, the tourist sector in Spain. One of the pillars to form the project was to use the basic information sources that would provide the territorial basis of a developed tourist destination: the Costa del Sol. These sources can be differentiated into two types: Statistics (databases) and spatial (cartography). The Atlas, understood as a collection of graphic material was to show the magnitude that would measure the objects of study, which refer to the territorial dynamics, urban and, properly, tourism. Therefore, for the joint management of both statistical databases were used as cartography Geographic Information Systems, a tool that allowed linking the alphanumeric information (statistical magnitudes) with the spatial (cartography in the strict sense). Once this process combination, each element studied have associated information describing their basic characteristics and applying a number of algorithms to generate its adjacent relational information. The 1 brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC