About importing content to ArcGIS Online

You can find a wide range of spatial data on ArcGIS Online and the web to work with in ArcGIS Explorer Online and supplement this with your own features stored in your maps.

You might have local data on your machine that you want to add to a map, in order to combine it with other datasets and share it with other users. You can do this by importing data into ArcGIS Online. You can store the imported data in an editable layer within a specific map, so that all users of that map can see the data.

Tip:

Watch this short video about Importing data

If your ArcGIS Online account is part of an organization, and your organization administrator has granted you permissions for publishing, you have the option to create a feature service from the data you import. This provides a single, central location for your data that can then be added to many different maps. Ask your organization administrator for more information about publishing to a feature service.

How do I import data?

You can use the Add Content button in the map screen to import data, or simply drag data onto the map.

What kind of data can be imported?

You can import geographic data in Esri shapefile format, GPS Exchange (GPX) format, and tabular data as comma-separated values (CSV) files or other text files containing rows of data with location information separated by semicolon or tab characters.

Learn more about importing CSV data

Learn more about importing shapefiles

Learn more about importing GPX files

Location information for tabular data can be in a number of different forms; you can import text files containing coordinates, addresses, ZIP or postal codes, provinces, or place-names. Attributes associated with the different locations can also be imported.

For example, you could import a text file that contains the following data, creating a layer with four points showing locations of Esri learning centers in California:

Title,Address,City,State,Zip
Esri Headquarters,757 West Redlands Blvd,Redlands,CA,92373
NorthSouth GIS LLC,312 East First Street,Los Angeles,CA,90012
Oakland Professional Development and Conference Center,1000 Broadway,Oakland,CA,94607
Esri Office,1600 K Street,Sacramento,CA,95814