ArcGIS Online: What's New?

Add ArcGIS Online services and other published data services to your ArcGIS Online web map in just a few steps.

This regular column contains information about the latest updates to ArcGIS Online basemaps, content contributed by the user community through the Community Maps Program, and information about the latest map viewer enhancements and other ArcGIS Online capabilities that you can access at arcgis.com.

Basemap Updates

You can now access the recently released National Geographic World Map directly from the basemap gallery in the ArcGIS Online map viewer and ArcGIS Explorer Online. The map was developed by National Geographic and Esri and reflects the distinctive National Geographic cartographic style in a multiscale reference map of the world. Ocean Basemap has been updated with bathymetric data from the Seafloor Mapping Lab of California State University, Monterey Bay, for the coast of California. Coverage for US waters has also been updated down to 1:72,000. A new version of Light Gray Canvas map has also just been released. It includes worldwide coverage down to 1:72,000, as well as 1:9,000 for areas where NAVTEQ has provided data. This release also includes more labels at all scales, streets visible at additional scales, and a number of other enhancements.

The Community Maps Program contributions from user organizations around the world keep growing. New content for World Topographic Map includes the Trans Canada Trail from 1:18,000 to 1:1,000 and Matanusak-Susitnak Borough, Alaska, from 1:72,000 to 1:4,000, as well as more detailed local content for several areas in the United States, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, Florida, and Texas, and the Canadian areas of Hamilton, Ontario, and Morinville, Alberta. Content was also updated and expanded for North Carolina from 1:36,000 to 1:1,000, and local content was updated for the states of Maryland, Florida, California, and Washington, as well as Saskatchewan, Canada. Coverage for World Street Map was extended to include more detailed data for metropolitan areas around the world and updated cartography. New content was added to World Imagery Map for Kuwait; Melbourne, Australia; and several areas in California. Updated content was provided for Outagamie County, Wisconsin, and St. Albert, Alberta, Canada.

You can now access the recently released National Geographic World Map directly from the basemap gallery in the ArcGIS Online map viewer and ArcGIS Explorer Online.

For users who cannot access these online maps or need to provide them securely behind their organization's firewall, Data Appliance for ArcGIS is a great solution. It provides the same mapping content on a network-attached storage device that plugs right into the organization's internal network.

Esri maintains and expands the level of detail of the World Topographic, World Street, and World Imagery maps through contributions of GIS organizations around the world. Authoritative data from these organizations is contributed through the Community Maps Program and blended into one of the three basemaps that are published and hosted by Esri and made freely available to anyone. World Topographic Map is updated on a monthly basis. World Street Map and World Imagery Map are updated at least twice annually. For a complete list of all Community Maps updates and more details, visit the Community Maps Resource Center.

Map Viewer Improvements

The latest release of ArcGIS Online includes many map viewer enhancements. You can now search for layers based on the current extent of the map. For example, if your map is zoomed to Nevada, your search results are ordered and based on your map extent. If you change your map extent to Pennsylvania, it will typically return different results (depending on your keywords). The search results will include all layers that overlap your current map extent and match your keywords. These layers can be ArcGIS for Server map, image, and feature services; KML documents; and Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC), web services. When you share a web map through a link or embed it in a website, the extent you last viewed is automatically captured and included in the link or embedded map.

Add ArcGIS services and other published data services to your ArcGIS Online web map with just a few steps.

While adding CSV and text files has been supported in ArcGIS Online for some time, now you can also reference CSV and text file layers from the web. If you know of a specific URL for an ArcGIS for Server service, OGC Web Map Service, KML, or CSV layer, you can add it by choosing the type of data the layer references and entering the web address in the URL field in the Add Layer from Web dialog window in the map viewer. You can also add secure service layers that you created with ArcGIS for Server in the same way.

Esri has added more options for you to change the symbols on a map. You can now flip colors, set the outline, and use a slider to set the minimum and maximum size of a symbol.

Many of you have asked that the ability to edit features added from a shapefile or delimited text file should be disabled by default. This is now the case, and an option has been added in the layer properties to enable editing.

To start using ArcGIS Online content and capabilities, visit arcgis.com. For more details on what's new, go to the help.

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