If you have data you believe is appropriate and would like to participate in the Community Maps Program, please complete the participation form to get started. Esri will review the information provided and contact you regarding how to proceed.
Esri will need to access your data either via FTP or the Web, or you can send your data on a hard-drive that Esri will return to you. Alternatively, Esri can send you the hard-drive first and then you can return it with the data. Esri will then confirm the suitability of the data and notify you.
If you'd like to help prepare your data for publishing online, here are two important steps you can perform:
Author Map. To ensure uniform, high-quality cartography, Esri has created Map Templates that you can download and use to author your map. These Map Templates include map documents, sample data, and symbol style files to help create a map with your data.
Map Templates for the community maps include
Cache Map. Once the map has been authored, it can be used to generate a map cache using the Bing Maps/Google Maps tiling scheme. If you have ArcGIS for Server, you can create your own map cache using the built-in tiling scheme. Alternatively, you can provide the map you authored and Esri creates the map cache for you.
Esri will then publish the map cache that has been created as part of the appropriate community map in ArcGIS Online.
Attend a free virtual technical workshop to learn suggested workflows for preparing the data, authoring the map, and caching the data.
Your data will be integrated into an existing map comprised of a variety of government and commercial sources. The map will then be processed into a map cache format (i.e., JPG or PNG tiles) for display at multiple scales in 2D or 3D. The data may be included in Esri's Data Appliance for ArcGIS, which is used to support the ArcGIS Online infrastructure.
ArcGIS Online maps are updated regularly as new or updated data sets are acquired and processed. Esri and its data integration partner will publish updates to existing basemaps at least twice per year. Content that is contributed and accepted will be scheduled for publishing in one of these updates. Esri will notify you when the content is expected to be published and will send a confirmation notice, along with access instructions, when the content is publicly available.
If you require help with building your own map or have questions, check out the Community Basemap Resource Center or contact us via e-mail at online_content@esri.com.
