Using ArcView to Create Maps

Peter Kitson

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Using ArcView to Create Maps

In the process of formulating problems and devising solutions, urban planners are constantly analyzing the spatial distribution of physical, social, and economic characteristics. Geographic information systems (GIS) technology assists planners in doing this kind of analysis. Desktop mapping software is less powerful than GIS software, but is adequate for many ordinary situations. In this tutorial, you will learn to use a desktop mapping program, ArcView, to analyze the distribution of characteristics in space.

At the end of this tutorial you will have learned to use ArcView to create maps based on existing data sets. In this tutorial, you will use the two CD-ROMs comprising the Illinois Geographic Information System developed by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. You will learn how to create maps from these data, and also how to integrate data not contained in these CD-ROMs. There are six steps after you launch ArcView: create a project workspace, create a view, add themes, add tables, make a thematic map, make a query, produce output.

To begin, some definitions. A theme is a file containing graphic information required to draw a set of geographic features together with information about these features; a theme usually contains data on a single type of feature (streets, parcels, rivers, etc.). A table is a data file that contains rows of information about geographic features, one row to each feature, where each column represents one attribute; tables can be linked or joined to themes. A view is a collection of themes that are overlaid one over the other to create a composite map. A project file contains information about the collection of files (themes, tables, views) associated with a particular project; by storing this information one can restart work on a project where it was left off. A thematic map is a map that use colors, textures, or symbols to show the spatial distribution of characteristics; looking at a thematic map can reveal insights that cannot easily be discovered when viewing tabular representations of the same information.