Geographic Information Systems: an introduction: Maps

There is a variety of options to choose from when deciding on a digital map tool. Explore some of them in this page.

1. Click to give your map a name
2. Search for a city, landmark, region, address. You can add it to your layers from the information balloon.
3. Undo your last action
4. Select the items you need (ex. placemarks)
5. Placemarks: Click the button and then click a place on your map. You can edit later on the layer menu on the left or from the information balloon.
6. Tool to add lines or create shapes. Click on the first spot and add dots to create your shape/line. With this tool you can also create routes for cars, bicycles or walking
7. Give directions for the routes your draw. Creates an additional layer
8. Measure distances of routes, or between placemarks, cities etc.
9. Create different layers for different types of data. For example, if you need to add to a map information about the income and the height of people and their geographic location, you can create different layers for each type of information. Be careful when you add data that the correct layer is activated!
10. Share you map with a link, Decide if other people can only view or edit it. This way you can create a collaborative map with your group and have multiple people adding information.
11. See how the  map will be viewed publicly.
12. Instead of adding placemarks by hand on the map, you can import a .csv file with address or coordinates information
13. You can change the visualization of the map: make the roads or the physical ground visible.
14. This menu has a range of interesting options. Some of them are:
    1. Set default view: save your current view as the first one that appears when you open the map
    2. Embed on my cite: to activate this option you need to make your map public first; you can do that from the Share options mentioned above in bullet no. 10. Then, a piece of code will be available to copy and embed in your website's HTML. You can also change the width and height manually.
    3. Export to KML: If you are using Google Earth, you can export your map in a .kml file and import it with all the data you have saved
    4. Print map: you can print the current view of your browser window in .pdf or image file.
15. You can rename or delete the layer from here. Also, you can view the data you have inputted in a table format.
16. Click the plus button to zoom in a region or the minus to zoom out

1. Select if you want to edit your placemarks as a group or individually.

2. Then select colors and icons to personalize them according to their function, purpose etc.

3. Continue editing your placemarks from the information balloon: you can add a description by clicking on the edit button, and add images from the web or your computer by clicking the photo button.

ArcGIS offers a free version of their software. It has any similar option with My Maps.

Google ArcGIS Online and click Sign In. In the page that appears click on "Create a public account". If you already have an account sign in with your credentials.

On the upper menu click on "Map". You can create a new map now.

1. Search for a place, press Enter when you find it, click on "Add to map notes" in the information balloon that appears on top of the placemark
2. You can edit the placemark by clicking on it. You can add images, descriptive text and change the shape and color of the symbol
3. You can add placemarks, lines and polygons manually as well. Click on the Edit menu on the left-hand menu and choose your preferred object. Then click on Edit in the information balloon and choose "Change symbol" to select color, line shape etc.
4. To add layers with a different type of data, click on the "Add" menu and select "Map notes". You can rename the layer by clicking on the 3 dots under it on the "Content" list.