MotivationContext-aware mobile systems aim at delivering information and services tailored to the current user's situation [1], [10]. One major application area of these systems is the tourism domain, assisting tourists especially during their vacation through location-based services (LBS) [4] , and employ their own data repositories, thus falling short in portability and having to deal with time consuming content maintenance. Second, often thick clients are used that may lack out-of-the-box-usage. Third, existing solutions are sometimes inflexible concerning configuration capabilities of the system. To deal with those deficiencies, we present a lightweight framework for LBS that can be used for various application domains. This framework builds on existing GIS standards, incorporates already available Web content, can be employed out-of-the-box, and is configurable by using a Web-based interface. The applicability of the framework is demonstrated by means of a prototype of a mobile tourist guide. Basic Features of our FrameworkIn the following a brief overview of the basic features of our framework is given.Support for LBS. Our framework supports the creation of LBS tailored to the user's position and preferences for arbitrary application domains, e.g. tourism or infrastructure management. The user is provided with a map of his/her surroundings together with points of interests (POIs) and the current position based on GPS.Integration of external data-sources. Integration of existing external data sources is enabled by incorporating existing GIS servers as well as by augmenting the POIs with existing Web content (cf. e.g. [11], [14]).Exploitation of GIS standards. Our framework uses the open OGC Web Map Service (WMS) standard [13] for retrieving geospatial information in form of maps.Application of a thin client approach. A thin client approach is employed allowing to run the application out-of-the-box. On the client side only a graphical, ActiveX enabled browser, an Internet connection and a GPS sensor is required.Configuration of external content inclusion. Our framework offers the possibility of configuring the inclusion of external Web content through a Web-based interface. First, POIs can be added, deleted and updated in the framework's repository (cf. Section 4). Second, for each POI a title, the geographical coordinates and an URL pointing to external Web content describing the POI, can be configured. Third, POIs can be assigned to possibly nested categories, thus forming thematic layers such as