CIAO is a data analysis system written for the needs of users of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Because Chandra data is 4-dimensional (2 spatial, time, energy) and each dimension has many independent elements, CIAO was built to handle N-dimensional data without concern about which particular axes were being analyzed. Apart from a few Chandra instrument tools, CIAO is mission independent. CIAO tools read and write several formats, including FITS images and tables (which includes event files) and IRAF imh files. CIAO is a powerful system for the analysis of many types of data.