In recent years, visual representations have been increasingly used in the management of real-world phenomena as a valuable support for human?computer interaction. In the field of Geographic Information Systems, visual languages represent a promising means for allowing unskilled users to query geographic databases. In the present paper, we define the Metaphor GIS query Language (MGISQL) which allows GIS users to simultaneously capture the spatial and the thematic components of geographic data. MGISQL describes the semantic of those data in the real world and is based on a special type of visual description, the geometaphor, which is used to specify all the elements featured in a GIS domain.