Notification that a legacy Ocean Basemap will be retired December 1, 2022

Esri will be retiring a legacy Ocean Basemap December 1, 2022. Once the basemap is retired, it will no longer be available to use in maps and apps. 

If you are using this basemap, you will need to point your applications to the equivalent Ocean Basemap in general availability. 

The Ocean Basemap in general availability was created in 2018 and continues to be updated on a regular basis. If you started using the Ocean Basemap after this date, you are likely using the equivalent basemap in general availability and don’t need to make any changes. If you’re unsure, keep reading.

ArcGIS Online users: 

If you are the owner of a web map in ArcGIS Online, the easiest way to migrate to the correct version of the Ocean Basemap is by selecting Oceans in the Map Viewer Basemap Gallery. If you want to check what basemap is used in your web map, you can go to the item details page for the web map and look for the basemap in the Layers list. If you are using a deprecated basemap, you should upgrade to the basemap in general availability. 

To change your basemap, open your web map in the Map Viewer, select the new basemap from the Basemap Gallery, and save your web map. 

ArcGIS Enterprise users: 

An administrator will need to confirm that the basemap in the Basemap Gallery is pointing to the correct version of the Ocean basemap. Once this step is complete, users in your organization can open web maps in the Map Viewer, select the new basemap from the Basemap Gallery, and save the web map. 

ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap users:  

You can select the basemap in the Basemap Gallery and save your project. 

Developers using ArcGIS APIs and SDKs: 

When referencing a web map, follow the instructions for ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise users. 

If you are referencing a deprecated or retiring basemap by enumeration, by item, or by REST URL, you must modify the code to reference a basemap in general availability. This is the retiring REST endpoint you can check for. 

• Ocean_Basemap – https://services.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/Ocean_Basemap/MapServer 

If you have a developer subscription, you should refer to basemaps for developers for more details. 

This blog was originally published June 7, 2022.  It was updated September 14, 2022 to add the explicit retirement date of December 1. 2022.  The old version notified users that that the retirement date would be December 2022 without a day.

About the author

Savannah Roth

Savannah Roth is a summer 2022 intern with the Data and Location Services team in the Product Management department. She is currently a rising senior at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and is majoring in Biosystems Engineering and GIS.