Living Atlas of the World: an Introduction
Leveraging the Living Atlas to Build Engaging Maps that Enhance Understanding and Contribute to the Community
Leveraging the Living Atlas to Build Engaging Maps that Enhance Understanding and Contribute to the Community
The ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is the foremost collection of geographic information from around the globe. It includes maps, apps, and data layers to support your work.
ArcGIS Living Atlas is an integral part of the ArcGIS system; you can use it to make maps in ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Enterprise, or use it within ArcGIS Web APIs and SDKs.
ArcGIS Living Atlas is updated frequently, and has evolved and expanded greatly over the past year. Content is often published on its own release schedule, so it’s possible to miss an update or new offerings during the course of the year. The following is a short list of recent release milestones.
The Basemap category includes maps and layers that provide reference maps for our world and context for your work. Basemaps can provide general reference information, create styles for focused maps, component layers to create basemaps, historical maps.
The premier source for detailed demographic information for the United States. Within the Living Atlas, there are 78 layers that cover 89 different ACS tables. These cover topics such as housing, population, employment, income, race, age, insurance, education, veteran status, internet connectivity, and more.
This information helps users like yourself answer questions such as:
"A policy map is a map where the opportunity to intervene is made clear." - Steven Goldsmith
Putting the "Living" in the Living Atlas
The Imagery category includes imagery of various types, such as multi-scale imagery built for use as a basemap, multi-spectral imagery that reveals different characteristics, temporal imagery that reveals change over time, and imagery of places affected by major events.
World Imagery provides one meter or better satellite and aerial imagery in many parts of the world and lower resolution satellite imagery worldwide. The map includes:
2.5 meter SPOT Imagery (288k to 72k) for the world;
USGS 15 meter Landsat imagery for Antarctica;
Digital Globe 0.3meter resolution imagery in the continental United States;
And 0.6 meter resolution imagery in parts of Western Europe;
1 meter USDA NAIP imagery is available in select states of the US
In other parts of the world, 1 meter resolution imagery is available from GeoEye IKONOS, AeroGRID, and IGN Spain
Additionally, imagery at different resolutions has been contributed by the GIS User Community.
The National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) acquires aerial imagery during the agricultural growing seasons in the contiguous U.S. A primary goal of the NAIP program is to make "leaf-on" digital ortho photography available to governmental agencies and the public within a year of acquisition.
NAIP is administered by the USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) through the Aerial Photography Field Office in Salt Lake City.
The imagery is published in 4-bands (RGB and Near Infrared), with the option to display the imagery as Natural Color, Color Infrared, or NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) showing relative biomass of an area.
USGS, Nature Conservancy and Esri
Map of World Ecosystems, broken down into 431 classes based on the unique combinations that arise from a massive union of global datalayers on
The 250-m per pixel resolution provides a level of detail necessary for practical land management.
This layer displays lands in the United States managed by six federal agencies:
500 Cities Project: 27 measures of chronic disease related to unhealthy behaviors, health outcomes, and use of prevention services.
Bi-variate, Relationship Map showing the correlation of obesity and coronary heart disease.
Social Vulnerability Index: CDC's Social Vulnerability Index uses 15 U.S. census variables at tract level to help local officials identify communities that may need support in preparing for hazards; or recovering from disaster.
The Geospatial Research, Analysis, and Services Program (GRASP) created and maintains CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index.
Have you ever wanted to add the locations of schools to your map? Or wanted to see where the school district boundaries lie with your area of interest?
These questions can be answered quickly and easily with the official national source from NCES. With multiple school years available, you can choose the most appropriate vintage for your needs.
NorWeST Modeled Stream Temperatures: Western United States historical and projected stream temperature data from the NorWeST stream temperature model, including stream lines with modeled mean August stream temperatures for 1993-2011, the 2040s, and the 2080s.