Developing systematic GIS education programs is an important issue in Japan. This paper examined GIS education programs at US colleges and universities for the 2007-08 academic year. A majority (72%) of the GIS education programs awarded certificates while the remainder (28%) awarded degrees. Approximately 40% of the GIS education programs were based on interdepartmental cooperation. Among ten main classes (fields) of the Dewey Decimal Classification system, the field of history & geography played the most important role in the GIS education programs, while the fields of computer science, information and general works, science, social sciences, and technology played relatively significant roles. Cooperation between any combinations of two of these five fields was found with similar frequencies in around 10% of all programs. GIS education programs are considerably more advanced in the US than in Japan.