  Qualitative spatial and temporal reasoning is based on so-called qualitative
calculi. Algebraic properties of these calculi have several implications on
reasoning algorithms. But what exactly is a qualitative calculus? And to which
extent do the qualitative calculi proposed meet these demands? The literature
provides various answers to the first question but only few facts about the
second. In this paper we identify the minimal requirements to binary
spatio-temporal calculi and we discuss the relevance of the according axioms
for representation and reasoning. We also analyze existing qualitative calculi
and provide a classification involving different notions of a relation algebra.
