Attribute

Attribute is a characteristic quality of someone or something. In grammar, it is a word that functions either as attributive adjective or noun. In statistical analysis, it is the real property that is attempted to be describe. In computing and geography, it is a piece of information that determines the properties of a filed or place respectively.

It may also be a piece of information about a geographic feature in a GIS, generally stored in a table and linked to the feature by a unique identifier. For example, attributes of a river might include its name, length, and average depth or attribute for a village may be its population.