A geodatabase is a database designed to store, query, and manipulate geographic information and spatial data. It is also known as a spatial database.
Within a spatial database, spatial data is trated as any other data type. Vector data can be stored as point, line or polygon data types, and may have an associated spatial reference system. A geodatabase record can use a geometry data type to represent the location of an object in the physical world and other standart database data types to store the object's associated attributes. Some geodatabases, such as those used by Esri in their ArcGIS software also include support for storing raster data.
Many geodatabases have custom functions that allow the spatial data to be manipulated and queried using SQL, for example to find all the residents of an area within an exposure zone for a potential environmental hazard. However the spatial data in some geodatabases can only be accessed by using specialized client software.