Top 20 Essential Skills for ArcGIS® Pro introduces the most important skills you need to get up and running with geographic information systems (GIS).

With its location data advantage, geographic information system (GIS) software is a tool to help with key projects, decisions, and problems. But how do you start using GIS in your projects? If you need a fast track to using this valuable tool, learn and get experience with Top 20 Essential Skills for ArcGIS Pro.

With this book, you can start using ArcGIS Pro quickly and successfully.

• Easy-to-understand, step-by-step exercises
• Conversational, upbeat language with lots of illustrations and tips
• Interesting user stories covering how GIS is applied in many situations
• Exercises for working with spatial data, creating maps, and doing basic analysis

This handy resource with easy to follow, how-to steps will help you build your skill set to become adept at understanding and using ArcGIS Pro.

The Power of Where presents the visionary concepts of Jack Dangermond, cofounder of Esri®, the world’s leading mapping software company. With a foreword by bestselling author and writer for The Atlantic, James Fallows, it’s filled with the latest web maps, illustrations, and real-life stories from a vibrant global community of geographic information systems (GIS) users. If you’ve never heard of GIS, this is the book for you, and if you think you know what GIS is, you’ll discover much more.

From the Ring of Fire to the Fertile Crescent, The Power of Where takes us on a visual and narrative journey into the world of modern GIS and reveals its growing potential to address humanity’s big challenges. The technology is already ubiquitous, from running city governments and performing civic science to conserving open spaces and managing logistics—virtually every human endeavor.

Central to the book is the geographic approach—a way of solving problems that uses spatial location to perceive and understand patterns—from wildlife migration and rising seas to urban planning and food production. Drawing from 60 years of research and experience, the author writes from a fervent conviction that through this approach, we can confront climate change, hunger, water scarcity, inequity, and issues large and small in our everyday lives.

The book describes the methods of the geographic approach—visualization, communication, analysis, collaboration, accounting, and design—and shows how vast amounts of integrated data are propelling spatial applications into the mainstream. A companion website brings interactive maps and stories to life and serves as a starting point for students and educators—and anyone considering joining the GIS user community.

The Power of Where reveals how technologies such as web services, mobile devices, artificial intelligence, extended reality, and 3D visualization intersect with GIS and outlines the new opportunities they are creating. Its maps and stories arise from a passion for the power of place and from the mutually reinforcing revolutions in Earth observation, analysis, and collaboration that GIS and the human spirit make possible.

Explore live examples from the book and learn more about interactive mapping and the tools of modern GIS at powerofwhere.com.

Create useful and usable map apps that your users will love.

Turn your next map app project into a success with Designing Map Interfaces: Patterns for Building Effective Map Apps. Whether you're configuring an out-of-the-box solution, building an app using one of the readily available app builder tools, or working on a custom app project, this book will guide you toward developing more useful and usable apps. Current courses for application development focus on technology and architecture rather than the tenets of interface design. This book teaches GIS professionals, developers, and designers the principles and best practices that will help them create stunning consumer-grade apps.

Designing Map Interfaces provides a language for planning and building map apps. The elements of this language are made up of user interface (UI) patterns. Each pattern describes a solution to an observed and recurring problem in UI design. This book explains when to use the pattern, why it is important, and what to consider—and in turn will help readers make educated decisions on what, why, when, and how to solve problems to make their apps work. Throughout the book, patterns are illustrated through real-world examples.

Key topics include: 

• getting started with design, 
• selecting the right layout, 
• interacting with the map,   
• dealing with complex data, 
• designing for mobile devices,
• building single-purpose apps, and 
• common mistakes and how to avoid them.

This book is aimed at anyone who configures (solution engineers, GIS professionals) or builds (developer community, designers) map apps, especially the fast-growing group of users who employ application builders and tools that create apps to publish their own data and maps on the web. Designing Map Interfaces fills the gap that documentation lacks—practical tips on how to assemble a meaningful UI.

This book is the essential guide to designing map interfaces that are usable and efficient, and that look good in the process.

Bring data to life with this essential guide to storytelling with maps. 

From scraping patterns in sand to drawing intricate lines on vellum and paper, to charting every place on the planet, humans have used maps as a powerful storytelling medium. The advent of the digital age has revolutionized the creation, distribution, and consumption of maps. The web created enormous opportunities for storytelling, enabling maps to dance and weave, partnering with other multimedia elements—photos, video, audio, text—to tell countless tales about our world. 

Featuring a foreword by renowned travel writer and cofounder of Lonely Planet Tony Wheeler, Telling Stories with Maps: Lessons from a Lifetime of Creating Place-Based Narratives bridges both the analog and digital realms, showcasing how maps themselves tell stories and enrich narratives by providing context and insight. Richly illustrated with examples from traditional maps to the latest digital visualizations, this book is an essential guide for anyone interested in the powerful storytelling potential of maps. 

Topics covered include: 

• How storytelling is fundamental to our humanity  
• Comparing and contrasting the use of words, images, and maps in storytelling 
• How maps help us tackle the who, what, when, where, why, and how  
• Considerations for the deep connection between maps and memory 
• How cartography and location-based storytelling have changed during the digital age  
• How the author and his collaborators refined storytelling techniques to create printed wall maps and atlas plates 
• The roles that maps play in narrative context 

Readers will learn:  

• 15 approaches to storytelling and place-based topics 
• How exposure to maps and geography can change how we think 
• Storytelling approaches suited for digital media yet honoring the centuries-old conventions of cartography 
• How to develop multimedia stories with the ability to employ motion and interactivity for your audience 
• Practical features and functions of ArcGIS StoryMaps, Esri’s storytelling platform, with insight and inspiration you can apply to your stories. 

Author Allen Carroll brings his experience from both the National Geographic Society and Esri into his writing. Carroll spent more than a decade of his 27-year career at National Geographic Society as chief cartographer. In 2010, Caroll joined Esri and founded its ArcGIS StoryMaps team, which developed web tools that enabled hundreds of thousands of individuals and organizations to tell place-based stories combining interactive maps and multimedia content. 

Telling Stories with Maps is a winding journey, from thoughts on how our brains process spatial information to practical tips on creating stories, that will guide and inspire you to create place-based narratives that intrigue readers. 

Making interactive web maps has never been easier. 

Top 20 Essential Skills for ArcGIS Online guides readers, step by step, through the process of creating maps that simplify location data and unlock spatial insights. In just a few clicks, you’ll publish professional web maps that use smart, data-driven mapping styles and powerful analysis tools.

These bite-sized chapters demonstrate how to create layers, build web maps, and showcase your location data in professional visualizations. Each chapter takes about 45 minutes to complete.

Top 20 Essential Skills for ArcGIS Online includes:

• Easy-to-understand, step-by-step tutorials

• Simple instructions with plenty of screenshots showing what to do

• Resources that provide readers with self-paced learning opportunities

By the end of this book, you’ll know:

• Smart mapping, blend modes, effects, setting visibility ranges, and other basic cartography techniques

• ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, ArcGIS Notebooks, charts, forms, and data pipelines

• How to share your maps to the world

Top 20 Essential Skills for ArcGIS Online is perfect for students looking for a comprehensive guide to follow from beginning to end, professionals looking to learn specific skills, or those who want a single, reliable, comprehensive resource for learning how to create web maps.

Make your own interactive web maps using the first book from Esri Press exclusively for ArcGIS Online.