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Display XY Coordinates in ArcMap

1.  Load your XY coordinates into an Excel Spreadsheet
2.  If your coordinates are in Degrees/Minutes/Seconds, convert them to decimal degrees (DD)

  • Remember that there are 60 minutes in 1 degree and 3600 seconds in 1 degree

  • The formula to convert DMS to DD is:  Degrees + (minutes / 60) + (seconds / 3600)

3.  Format the spreadsheet so that

  • the first row contains the field names (ie. x, y, name, etc)
  • there should be no spaces or non-alphanumeric characters (underscore is OK)
  • rows 2 - ... should contain data
  • the x column is populated with the DD longitude
  • the y column is populated with the DD latitude
  • Remember "LATitude:LATter > Y > climbing up the axis"
  • Remember "LONGitude:LONG > X > all longitude lines are the same length and they're long"

4.  Save and close the Excel spreadsheet
5.  From ArcMap, load the worksheet in the Excel file you just created
6.  Right-click > Open to view the data
7.  Right-click > Display XY Data

  • specify X and Y field
  • click the EDIT button to add coordinate system information
  • if your data is in DD, you need to specify a Geographic coordinate system (most likely Workd > WGS84 - but it COULD be different, you need to check the metadata to verify)
  • if your data is in UTM or StatePlane, then you specify a Projected coordinate system

8.  Hit OK to add the event theme
9.  Right-click the event theme > Data > Export to save the layer as a shapefile