Abstract: To meet the requirements of NSDI construction, this paper investigates the issues of the developments and applications of cartographic generalization software. From the point of view of software development, the study explores the hierarchical partitioning of cartographic generalization functions and the realization in the computer system, the construction of generalization environment, the normal representation of generalization rules and the design of generalization operators. By the case study of 1∶50 000 database construction from 1∶10 000 basic database, a technological method is presented to build multi-scale map database.