National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

**About the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency** The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) delivers world-class geospatial intelligence that provides a decisive advantage to policymakers, military service members, intelligence professionals and first responders. NGA is a unique combination of a Department of Defense (DOD) combat support agency and a principal member of the U.S. intelligence community. NGA gives warfighters, the IC and first responders a worldwide, firsthand intelligence baseline for their own analytical and operational needs. This includes everything from contributing to the state of readiness of our military forces to ensuring safety of navigation in the air, on land and over/under the seas. NGA also helps protect the homeland by providing critical insight for humanitarian efforts, disaster relief and recovery operations. Anyone who sails a U.S. ship, flies a U.S. aircraft, makes national policy decisions, fights wars, locates targets, responds to natural disasters or navigates with a cellphone relies on NGA. This agency enables all of the critical actions and shapes decisions that impact our world through the indispensable discipline of geospatial intelligence, also known as GEOINT. GEOINT is the use of imagery, imagery intelligence and geospatial information to describe and depict features, activities and locations on Earth, helping users visualize what is happening at a particular time and place. Geospatial intelligence allows military commanders to know the exact location of U.S. Forces, coalition partners, adversaries and noncombatant persons. It predicts adversary movement based on natural and man-made obstacles. GEOINT goes beyond describing "what, where and when" to exposing "how and why." The director of NGA serves as the IC's functional manager for GEOINT, the DOD GEOINT manager, the head of the National System for Geospatial Intelligence (NSG), and the chair of the Allied System for Geospatial Intelligence (ASG). As such, the director synchronizes operations to realize a professional, interoperable, agile and integrated GEOINT enterprise. As the lead federal agency for GEOINT, NGA manages a global consortium of more than 400 commercial and government relationships.