Abstract: Based on the needs for the smart city and big data era as well as the unique analysis function of maps, the requirements and technical essentials of geospatial information and visualization for the big data era are discussed in detailed. In the period of the smart city construction, it is necessary for the spatial data not only to posses more comprehensive and detailed content, more direct expression and modeling and materialization, but also capable to develop towards the direction of data fusion, which includes the fusion between indoor spatial data and that of outdoor, the intergration between data underground and that of above the surface, the combination between previous data and that of the current as well as future.

Key words: smart city, big data, map, geo-spatial data, visualization