Abstract: At present,hierarchical method has found its wide applications in many fields,such as biology,medical,physics,electronics,sociology,and geographical information sciences.Several applications of hierarchy theory in geographical information sciences were investigated from the view of spatial representation,including locations,semantics,and spatial relations between spatial objects.Specifically,the concepts,classifications,and characteristics of hierarchy were described in detail.Then hierarchical representation for spatial objects,i.e.hierarchical location,hierarchical semantics and hierarchical spatial relations,was analyzed.A practical application was given to illustrate the usability of hierarchy theory in GIS.