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The particularity of GIS compared to other information systems is the management of spatial relationships, i.e. the connections or interrelations between real objects in the geometric domain. A number of frameworks use topology as basic mechanism to define spatial relationships. OpenGIS consortium has adopted one of them, i.e. the 9-intersection model. In this paper, a new framework for representing spatial relationships -the Dimensional model -is introduced. The model was first developed for convex spatial objects and is now extended to topological n-manifolds. It is based on two major concepts, i.e. the dimensional elements of spatial object and the dimensional relationships being the relationships existing between dimensional elements. It represents a very large group of spatial relationships and provides a flexible framework to consider either generalised or specialised types of relationships.

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