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Online Mapping Resources: Home

This will serve as a guide to accessing & using resources that allow you to make and export a map online, either using data you provide, or data provided by the platform.

Online mapping resources overview

This will serve as a guide to accessing & using resources that allow you to make and export a map online, either using data you provide, or data provided by the platform.

Related Resources

ArcGIS Online (arcgis.com)

The Yale University ArcGIS Online is a cloud-based mapping platform.

  • Mapping your data can help to identify spatial patterns that are not easy to spot with tabular data 
  • Allows you to map your data without the need to learn ArcGIS Desktop
  • It allows you to create web applications based on out-of-the-box templates. Explore dozens of Story Maps and find ways to showcase your own project

Need Training? Esri offers virtual training to learn how to publish data and map layers. The 3-hr course "Creating and Sharing GIS Content Using ArcGIS Online" might help you to start with your web-mapping projects. To learn more about that and other Esri Virtual training courses, as well as how to enroll at no cost (Yale members only), please visit the Virtual GIS Training section. 

CARTO

CARTO is a web-mapping platform that allows to integrate spatial data to display with multiple visualization options. CARTO offers various products such as CARTO Builder and CARTO Engine. 

CONNECTExplorer

The CONNECTExplorer is a web-based application that offers EagleView’s high-resolution aerial imagery gives organizations the finest level of detail to rapidly make crucial everyday decisions. EagleView imagery (formerly Pictometry) is captured with patented proprietary camera systems that enable you to see the world from multiple perspectives.

  • Resolution: Detail as fine as .75 inches ground sample distance—16x higher resolution than satellite
  • Coverage: 98% coverage of the United States population
  • Frequency: Regularly updated imagery to provide current and historical views

CONNECTExplorer allows the users to view and analyze high-resolution aerial imagery, including high-quality oblique and orthogonal images. The application offers useful functions such as measuring height and area of buildings, spaces, or even trees. The annotation details can be exported as CSV or KML files. The images can be exported as graphic files including JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, GeoTIFF (Orthos only) which are generated in Zip file,  KMZ (LatLonQuad or LatLonBo), or PDFs. The exported aerial imagery can be integrated into any GIS software.

Esri Business Analyst Web Apps

Esri Business Analyst Web Apps allows you to perform market analysis with over 15,000 variables concerning demographics, consumer behavior, employment and many others.

  • You may conduct market analysis based on geographies, rings, drive-time and walk-time
  • It allows you to compare different sites

PolicyMap

PolicyMap offers a large selection of variables about communities. In addition to business data, there are are also variables that cover many aspects of housing, lending, income, health and quality of life. These variables have been collected by The Reinvestment Fund, "a nonprofit community development financial institution that works across the Mid-Atlantic". Browse their wide selection of variables to get a sense of the time periods and locations covered, as some of the coverage can be for a relatively small area. 

SimplyMap

Simply Map is the place to go for marketing and business data. You can get point data for over 4.5 million US Businesses and Points-of-Interest including their contact and general information. You can also access market and media research industry data from Mediamark Research, Inc. Easy Analytic Software Inc. (EASI) has created a Life Stages data set that is also available through Simply Map.

The Yale Simply Map subscription provides acces to the Census data from 2000 and 2010, each in the 2000 and 2010 boundariesgeographies. 

SocialExplorer

Social Explorer is the choice if you are looking for historical census data. In Social Explorer you will have access to the U.S. Decennial Census back to 1790 as well as the data from the American Community Survey from 2005 to 2013. This is also the source for the Religious Congregations and Membership Study (RCMS) for 1980, 1990 and 2000, the Infogroup Religion 2009 and 2010 and the 2002 Carbon Dioxide Emissions data.

TerraScope

TerraScope is a map-based interface for exploring IPUMS Terra's population and environmental data.  

Population data:
  • Topics: Demographics, education, employment and housing characteristics
  • Format: Area-level data describing geographic units
  • Sources: National censuses

Environmental data:

  • Topic: Land cover, agricultural land use, climate
  • Format: Raster data (spatial grids)
  • Sources: Satellite imagery, weather stations, agricultural censuses

GIS Librarian

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Miriam Olivares
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GIS Librarian
Marx Science & Social Science Library
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