In this article, recent achievements of cognitive research in geographic information science (GIScience) are reviewed and prospects for future directions discussed. Cognitive research in GIScience concerns human knowledge and knowing involving geographic information and geographic information systems (GIS). It includes both internal mental and external symbolic structures and processes, and is practically motivated by the desire to improve the usability, efficiency, equity, and profitability of geographic information and GIS. Taking 1992 as the start of modern GIScience, recent cognitive research falls into six areas: human factors of GIS, geovisualization, navigation systems, cognitive geo-ontologies, geographic and environmental spatial thinking and memory, and cognitive aspects of geographic education. Future prospects for cognitive GIScience research include recommendations for methods, including eye-movement recordings and fMRI; theoretical approaches, including situated cognition, evolutionary cognition, and cognitive neuroscience; and specific problems, including how users incorporate uncertainty metadata in reasoning and decision making, the role of GIS in teaching K-12 students to think spatially, and the potential detrimental effects of over-reliance on digital navigation systems.