It is my great pleasure as the Director General of the Geographical Survey Institute (GSI), the national surveying and mapping organization of Japan, to inform you that effective on 1 April 2010, the official English appellation of the GSI will be changed to “Geospatial Information Authority of Japan”. This change is made to better represent the current mission of the GSI that has been evolved over the years to accommodate more responsibilities on geospatial information policy development.