This paper presents an approach towards the development of a
Geographic Information System (GIS) for crop area estimation to
support crop forecasting systems at a regional level. The overall system
design aimed at supporting crop area estimation through area
frame sampling (AFS), remote sensing, and a combination of AFS
and remote sensing. However, the detailed design was carried out
to support AFS only. Later, a system was realized which can support
AFS survey design, field work, data processing as well as quality
assessment of the input data. Based on this, two prototype systems
were designed, the so-called CAEIS - I and CAEIS - II. CAEIS - I was
developed using the Arc Macro Language (AML) of UNIX-based
Arc/Info software, and CAEIS - II was developed using Microsoft
Access on a PC environment. Later, the functions of the system
were tested and evaluated, using field data collected from Razan
township in Hamadan province of the Islamic Republic of Iran during
the summer of 1997. The results showed a satisfactory match
between the area of major agricultural commodities derived
through the developed system and those areas derived by
Agricultural Statistics Information Division (ASID) of the Ministry of
Agriculture, I.R. of Iran.