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The development of geographical information systems (GIS) and the interoperability between these systems demands new requirements for the description of the underlying data. The exchange of data between GIS systems is problematic and often fails due to confusion in the meaning of concepts. The term semantic translator, a translator between GIS systems and/or catalogue systems which gives the user the option to map data between the systems is a topic of current research. This paper provides an overview of formal ontologies and how they can be used for geographical information processing. A description of an intelligent broker architecture for semantic-based information retrieval is introduced, and shows how this approach can be used for general purposes. In conclusion we attempt to provide a roadmap for the use of ontologies for geographic information processing.