The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the liberalisation of the telecom sector have given a growing number of people the possibility to access to all type of information and also have contributed to promote the communication among citizens, businesses and public administrations, removing the constraints of time, place and distance, making the world a "global village". Therefore, this technological development is a key for the development of a knowledge based economy in which the information can be transmitted and be accessible by all within a "global network" - The Information Society.The general objective of this project is to characterize the information society from a territorial perspective and analyse its territorial aspects at macro, meso and micro level.The project is envisaged to consider both decentralised and centralised territorial effects of the information society at short-term and mid-term/long-term perspective and relate it with the goals and policy options defined in the ESDP. It will also cover rural and peripheral areas of the European Union, where the information society could be an important step towards their development, as well as the role of the information society in the development of urban-rural functional relations.The underlying objective is to assess the possible contribution of the information society to balanced spatial development, territorial cohesion and polycentricity.