A Brief Intro to ArcGIS (Geographic Information Systems)
As a Geographer, you know the importance of visual storytelling. I learned to gather my own data and create some beautiful maps using ArcGIS. Whether you are tracing population growth, birth and mortality rates, or mapping glaciers, there are endless uses for ArcGIS.
What is ArcGIS?
ArcGIS stands for Geoinformatic Systems. It is a software developed by ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute) that allows you to create maps and perform statistical analyses on them. It combines shapefiles (illustrations) with statistical methods.
A shapefile is a simple, nontopological format for storing the geometric location and attribute information of geographic features. Geographic features in a shapefile can be represented by points, lines, or polygons (areas). — Esri
You can think of ArcGIS as stacking pancakes of information on top of each other. Typically, you perform data collection and process that data, and ensure that there are no missing cells. The data is then uploaded to ArcGIS and processed using a variety of statistical techniques to uncover underlying patterns in the data.
GIS is not well known, but it is mighty. It is currently used to make maps at Apple and Waymo, among others. It also informs political decision making and can help leaders determine where tax dollars or grants should be given based on the results.
Here are a few notable examples:
- Apple Maps
- Waymo
- election results by county, state, etc. (so relevant!)
- census statistics
- tracing endangered species after they are tagged
- forestry management
- using cellphone data to track customers footpaths
Currently, there is a Javascript API available to all developers to integrate these awesome maps into your work here.