Abstract

" For the past five years an increasing number of gated communities and even ""gated cities"" in Latin American agglomerations arose a great deal of interest of both geographers and experts in urbanism. There is, however, a lack of pertinent data, especially for comparative studies within the metropolises, because complete data sets are not available routinely. An appropriate data basis was created for Santiago de Chile and Valparaíso. The paper focuses on methodological aspects of the design and preparation of a geographical data basis detailing the structures of gated communities in the metropolitan areas of these two cities. Due to incomplete cadastral information geographical information technologies (GIT) including Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and the Global Positional System (GPS) play an important role in the elaboration of this resource. It was, however, necessary to collect additional information by fieldwork. Examples of some communities demonstrate the research possibilities offered by this data basis. "