Metadata is a kind of data coming from some data collection

and it is a description or direction of the data collection.The advantages to utilize the metadata are as follows:（1）the speed of selecting and indexing from large volume of data in the geo spatial database can be improved;（2）it will promote the sharing of geo spatial information and propel the progress of Chinese standard;（3）it will be advantageous to evaluate the geo spatial data and control their quality;and（4）taking advantage of the metadata may be helpful to store and manage the geo spatial information.The General Provincial Situation GIS（GPSGIS）is a kind of GIS reflecting the comprehensive and general situation in some province

and the content contains:（1）the general geographic information（such as rivers

lakes

topology and so on）;（2）natural resources information;（3）economic information;（4）social development information;and（5）others.So

the development and application of GPSGIS should be supported by metadata for geo spatial data.On the basis of analyzing of the present standards for metadata

the contents of metadata in GPSGIS are put forward.The metadata is stored by a new method that is based on the relation database.Certainly the metadata is organized and managed by related tables to build the metadata database.The database is composed of some metadata tables as given belaw:（1）the top metadata table

located in the most top level of the all geo spatial databases;（2）the sub top metadata table

located in the lower level than the top one

so it is less important than the top metadata;and（3）the data collection metadata tables

located in the equal rank to the one geo spatial database.It is of importance that the management of the metadata databases is based on the management of the topologic data

but both of them must be coordinated.