Add data to a web map from ArcGIS Living Atlas

One of the main challenges when starting a GIS project is finding the right data. The ArcGIS ecosystem contains thousands of data layers that have been shared publicly. Many of these layers, even those with information at regional or national scales, can be used alongside your own data to enhance analysis and visualization. In this tutorial, you'll search for data using authoritative layers that have been shared in ArcGIS Online.

As an analyst beginning to study housing access in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, you need to find data on affordability. Affordable housing is a major challenge in many places. While the causes and effects of both affordability and availability vary by area, many cities are facing a shortage of affordable housing that is driving up costs. You'll start by exploring data from the American Community Survey, and then filter the data and customize your map so that it only shows data for your community.

This tutorial was last tested on June 13, 2025.

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Requirements

Add data to a web map from ArcGIS Living Atlas

Browse Living Atlas data

The first step in a GIS project is deciding what data to use. Authoritative data and other layers shared by the GIS community are accessible in ArcGIS Online directly through your map so you can explore them in one place. To find data on housing affordability, you'll start your search using ArcGIS Living Atlas. This is a good place to start your search because the data has been curated from authoritative sources.

1. Open ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise.

   If you don't have an ArcGIS organizational account, you can still complete this tutorial, but you will not be able to save the map at the end.

2. Sign in to your ArcGIS organizational account or into ArcGIS Enterprise using a named user account.

   Note:

   If you don't have an organizational account, see options for software access.

3. On the ribbon, click Map.

   

   A blank map opens. First, you'll locate your area of interest, Boston, Massachusetts, and then you'll look for data.

4. At the bottom right of the map, click Search.
5. In the Search bar, type Boston, MA and press Enter.

   

   The map zooms to Boston. Next, you'll look for data relevant to your project on housing affordability.

6. In the Layers pane, click Add.

   

   The Add layer pane opens. There are several repositories that you can add data to your map from, including ArcGIS Living Atlas and ArcGIS Online. If you're signed in to an organizational account, you can also add your own data and items that others in your organization have created.

7. If necessary, click My content and choose Living Atlas.

   

8. In the Search bar, type housing burden and press Enter.

   

   A series of layers titled ACS Housing Costs Variables is returned. These layers have two badges. The Authoritative badge indicates that the organization that owns the item has been verified as an authoritative source. The ArcGIS Living Atlas badge indicates that this is content curated by Esri. To see if this data will be useful to your project, you'll read more about the layer.

9. Click the ACS Housing Costs Variables – Boundaries card.

   

   A pane opens with information about the layer, including an overview, description, and summary of the layers that are included. This data is from the American Community Survey (ACS), a program run by the United States Census Bureau that surveys Americans annually on topics including housing situation, family and household makeup, and employment information.

10. Expand the Description section.

    

    The layer description includes information about the data source, purpose, notes on how it's currently styled, and more. ACS layers are updated annually, so they always contain the most current 5-year estimates from the Census.

11. Expand the Layers section.

    

    There are three sublayers included in the ACS Housing Costs Variables – Boundaries layer that aggregate the data to tract, county, and state geographies. This allows for multiscale mapping, or showing the data at different geographic scales. Each sublayer has the same attributes, so you'll consider what geography is most applicable to your analysis. Larger geographies, like the State layer, are more useful if you're comparing national or regional patterns. At the local level, the Tract layer is most useful.

12. Click the Tract sublayer.

    

    The Fields view appears. All of the attribute fields available in the dataset are listed here so you can make sure the layer has the data you need. The layer contains a breakdown on what percentage of a household's monthly income is spent on housing. ACS layers contain both an estimate and a margin of error for each attribute. ACS uses representative samples of the American population to provide these layers.

    The Margin of Error field provided with these estimates shows the potential range of values. For example, if a tract reports an estimate of 50 households with a margin of error of 15, you can understand this to mean that the tract may actually have anywhere between 35 and 65 households in it. While not precise, the sampling method used to collect data for ACS layers is far more cost effective. It also still provides important information about geographies in relation to each other. Using the estimated number of households, you can still see clearly what areas are more populated than others and other patterns. Learn more about mapping with margin of error.

    You'll add this layer to the map. Selecting this sublayer also allows you to add it to the map without adding the full group layer.

13. At the bottom of the ACS Housing Costs Variables – Boundaries layer pane, click Add to map.

    

    Because you had the Tract sublayer selected, this is the only layer added to the map. If you clicked Add on the ACS Housing Costs Variables – Boundaries card in the Add layer pane, all three geographies would be added as a group layer.

14. In the Add layer pane, click the back button.
15. On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Legend.

    

    The Legend information shows that the ACS Housing Costs Variables—Boundaries—Tract layer is styled to show housing burden for renters. Housing burden is defined as a household's monthly housing costs exceeding 30 percent of their monthly income. Tracts where higher percentages of households experiencing housing burden are shown in blue, and tracts where lower percentages of households experiencing housing burden are shown in light yellow.

Style a demographic layer

While many ArcGIS Living Atlas layers come with a preset style, these can be changed to suit the needs of your map. Any of the attributes in the layer can be used for styling, and there are a variety of color ramps and other symbology choices you can make to customize the layer.

1. On the Contents toolbar, click Layers. In the Layers pane, click the ACS Housing Costs Variables—Boundaries—Tract layer to select it.

   The selected layer has a blue bar.

   

2. On the Settings (light) toolbar, click Styles.

   

   The Styles pane opens. In the Choose attributes section, there are two options. The Field button allows you to select a different attribute from the layer to style. The Expression button opens the ArcGIS Arcade editor. You can use ArcGIS Arcade for calculations and more custom styling.

   The layer already shows the attribute you want to style, so you'll leave this.

3. For Pick a style, on the Counts and Amounts (color) card, click Style options.

   

   The Style options pane opens. In the Data range group, a histogram shows the range of values in the attribute and their distribution. Based on this histogram, you can see that the current styling has stops set around one standard deviation above and below the national mean percent of renter households for whom gross rent is 30 percent or more of household income. The color stops, in this case, determine where values get much darker or much lighter. This is a way of emphasizing where very high and very low percentages are.

   

   For this particular map, you‘re more interested in emphasizing where high percentages are.

4. Under Symbol style, click the color ramp.

   

   The Symbol style window opens.

5. In the Symbol style window, for Colors, click the color ramp.

   

6. In the Ramp window, choose the Green 6 ramp.

   Tip:

   Point to a color ramp to see its name.

   

   When choosing colors for a map, it's important to consider what you're mapping and who your audience is. Colors have different cultural connotations. For example, in this case, green may be commonly associated with money, making it a good color to show costly rent. Green can also commonly show parks or open space, and green may be associated with positive feelings or action.

7. If necessary, click Flip ramp color to ensure that the dark greens represent higher percentages.

   

   The map now shows tracts with higher percentages of rent burdened households in shades of green. It deemphasizes tracts with lower percentages of rent burdened households.

8. In the Ramp window, click Done. In the Style options pane, click Done two times.

   Next, you'll look for layers that will add more context to the map. What tracts are within the City of Boston? To find more layers, you'll look in ArcGIS Online.

Browse ArcGIS Online

Another possible source of GIS data is ArcGIS Online. Any data that has been shared publicly by ArcGIS users is available through ArcGIS Online, including data from local governments, universities, and other organizations. Now that you've found data that will help you begin your analysis of housing affordability, you'll look for a boundary layer showing the City of Boston.

1. On the Contents toolbar, click Layers. In the Layers pane, click Add.
2. In the Add layer pane, choose ArcGIS Online as the search repository.

   Because you're searching through a much larger catalog, and looking for very local data, you'll set filters on the search.

3. In the Search bar, click Refine content.

   

   There are two main filters that will be helpful. First, the Only show content within map area filter will apply a spatial filter to the content, only returning data that is applicable to the current extent of your map. Second, the Item type filter will allow you to filter out certain types of content that can't be added to your map, such as ArcGIS StoryMaps and other apps.

4. In the Refine content pane, turn on the Only show content within map area option.

   

5. Expand the Item type group. Click Feature layers.

   

   The two filters are listed at the bottom of the Refine content pane. You can add additional filters or remove the current ones to change the search results.

6. Close the Refine content pane.
7. In the Search bar, type Boston boundary and press Enter.

   Lots of results are returned, many that are likely from unofficial user accounts. But a few look like they might be from the City of Boston's GIS department, namely the items owned by Boston GIS.

8. On the City of Boston Outline Boundary (Water Excluded) layer card, click the Boston GIS username.

   

   This is the official account owned by the City of Boston's GIS team, so you know that data shared by this account is authoritative. This looks like a good layer to add, but you can add the account to your search terms to see if there's any other data from this account that you want to use.

   Note:

   You can open a list of all an account's items in a separate tab by clicking Items on the username card.

9. In the Search bar, after Boston boundary, type or paste the phrase owner:BostonGIS and press Enter.

   The search results now only list feature layers owned by the BostonGIS account.

10. For the City of Boston Outline Boundary (Water Excluded) layer, click Add.

    

    The layer draws on the map.

11. In the Add layer pane, click the back button.

    The Layers pane now lists two layers, the City of Boston Outline Boundary (Water Excluded) layer and the ACS Housing Costs Variables—Boundaries—Tract layer.

    The boundary layer has a default color of bright pink, which clashes with the current styling of the rent-burdened households layer.

12. Make sure the City of Boston Outline Boundary (Water Excluded) layer is selected in the Layers pane. On the Settings toolbar, click Styles.

    Because you haven't selected an attribute field to map, the only style option is Location (single symbol).

13. For Location (single symbol), click Style options. For Symbol style, click the current symbol.

    

14. In the Symbol style window, for Outline color, click the Edit button.

    

    The Select color window opens.

15. In the Select color window, choose a dark gray color, like #525252.

    

16. In the Select color window, click Done. In the Styles pane, click Done two times.

    

    The map now shows the data styled so that the City of Boston boundary is a dark gray polygon.

Add a layer using the URL

You can also add content to a web map using the URL. A colleague heard what project you were working on and suggested adding another layer to call attention to the City of Boston. You'll add the layer to your existing map using the web service URL. An ArcGIS Server web service represents a GIS resource—such as a map, image, or feature class—that is located on an ArcGIS Server site and is made available to client apps such as Map Viewer.

1. Browse to the item page for the mask_boston layer. Ensure that this layer opens in a new tab, preserving your web map.

   This layer, also published by BostonGIS, is a mask layer created for visualization. The layer is a polygon with the city of Boston cut out, creating a blur effect on the surrounding area.

2. On the item page, scroll down until you see the Details section.

   

   The information in this section shows that the source of this feature layer is a feature service. A feature service refers to a data hosting service that contains feature layers used to access spatial data and tables used to access nonspatial data. A hosted feature layer is a reference to a feature layer in a feature service that is stored in ArcGIS.

3. Scroll down to the URL section. For the URL, click Copy.

   

4. Open the tab your map is in.
5. In the Layers pane, for Add, click the drop-down arrow and choose Add layer from URL.

   

   The Add Layer window opens.

6. In the URL box, paste the URL you copied from the mask_boston item page.

   

   When you paste the URL, the Type value is automatically detected and changes to ArcGIS Server web service. This specifies how the data should be added to the map.

7. Ensure that Type is set to ArcGIS Server web service.
8. Click Add to map.

   The mask layer draws on the map, creating a blurred effect for areas outside the City of Boston. But because it's the last layer added to the map, it draws on top of the boundary layer, partially hiding it.

9. In the Layers pane, click the fade mask boston layer and drag it below the City of Boston Outline Boundary (Water Excluded) layer.

   

   Your map is complete. You now have data showing where renter households are experiencing housing burden in the City of Boston. Housing burden is defined as a household's monthly housing costs exceeding 30 percent of their monthly income.

   

   Using this map, you can see where high percentages of households are experiencing housing burden in order to start identifying common issues or causes in these areas that may be contributing to the issue, such as a shortage of housing units.

Esri provides access to many spatial data layers with United States Census Bureau data through its free authoritative data repository, ArcGIS Living Atlas. To learn more about ACS data, explore the resources included in Learn about your community using Census ACS layers in ArcGIS Living Atlas. To learn about ways you can share your maps, try the tutorial Share a map.

You can find more tutorials in the tutorial gallery.

Acknowledgements

• The ACS Housing Units Occupancy Variables - Boundaries layer available from ArcGIS Living Atlas. It is sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 2019-2023 5-year estimates, Table(s) B25070, B25091.
• City of Boston Outline Boundary (Water Excluded) and Mask_Boston layers provided by the City of Boston.
• Topographic map sources: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS User Community