Display X,Y Coordinates
Scenario: You are working in a GIS department in Alaska, and your colleague hands you an Excel spreadsheet titled "Alaska_Villages.xlsx. The spreadsheet contains the names of a few villages in Alaska, along with their longitude (X) and latitude (Y) coordinates. Your task is to add this data to ArcGIS Pro as a point layer for further analysis and mapping.
Software requirements:
- Excel
- ArcGIS Pro 3.3.x
1 - Download the Excel spreadsheet by following this link https://tribalgis-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/p/sarques/ETgsOQNIN2JMhc-Fjwd1zhcBvWTWqTaqgUm_2JOMLkcWcg?e=ZoXKSG
2 - Save your file in a meaningful location, open it and inspect its content.
Great news! The Alaska_Villages spreadsheet contains the longitude (X) and latitude (Y) coordinates in decimal degrees, which is ideal for use in ArcGIS Pro. Decimal degrees simplify the process of adding geographic data, as they are directly compatible with most GIS software. If the coordinates had been in degrees, minutes, and seconds (DMS) format, an additional step would be required to convert them into decimal degrees before importing them.
See our article about converting Degrees Minutes Seconds to Decimal Degrees using Excel here: https://support.tribalgis.com/article/24-how-to-convert-dms-to-dd-with-excel
The confusion between X and Y is a common pitfall in spatial data interpretation. It is crucial to clarify that X typically denotes the longitudinal coordinate, representing east-west positions on the Earth's surface. Conversely, Y correspond to the latitudinal coordinate, indicating north-south positions. Just remember: X is longitude, and Y is latitude. Write it somewhere!
3 - Open ArcGIS Pro and create a New Map Project or NEW Local Scene Project. We named ours 'XYCoordinates'.
4 - Go to the Map tab on the ribbon.
5 - In the Layer group select Add Data, Points From Table and XY Table to Point.
6 - Add the different Parameters in the Geoprocessing pane
- For Input Table: select Alaska_Villages.xlsx then Alaska_Villages$ (the $ sign stands for sheet)
- For Output Feature Class: accept the default or give your output feature class a meaningful name. We accepted the default "Alaska_Villages_XYTableToPoint".
- For X Field: choose the field in the input table that contains x coordinates.
- For Y Field: choose the field in the input table that contains Y coordinates.
- For Z Field (optional): choose the field in the input table that contains Z coordinates (elevation).
- Coordinate System: We chose WGS 1984 as the default topographic basemap has WGS 1984 for Geographic Coordinate System (GCS). You can always change your new dataset's GCS later (see related articles below). Here we would choose the North American Datum "NAD 1983" as Alaska is located in North America.
7 - Click Run. The new point feature layer should display in your map or scene and in your Contents pane.
When working with coordinate data in ArcGIS Pro (and most of the GIS software), the software is designed to automatically recognize several common field names used to represent latitude and longitude. Whether your data columns are labeled as Latitude and Longitude, Lat and Lon, or X and Y, ArcGIS Pro can interpret these as geographic coordinates.
When working with coordinates in GIS, it is very important to ensure that your dataset is set to a geographic coordinate system first (GCS), such as WGS84 or NAD83. Once your dataset is in a GCS, you can project it if needed using the Project tool.