Plotting XY Coordinates
Included in this tutorial:
Plotting XY coordinate points as an event layer
Using the XY Table to Point tool to plot coordinates in a new feature class
Software version in examples: ArcGIS Pro 3.3.1
Tutorial Data: The tutorial includes demonstration with sample data available here.
Credits: L. Meisterlin (2024)
This tutorial demonstrates plotting X,Y coordinates from a table in ArcGIS Pro. You can do this within your current ArcGIS project as an event layer or exporting the coordinate points to a new feature class.
The tutorial includes two examples of plotting coordinates from Table1 in the Standard Data Package of sample data:
in feet based on the projected NAD83 NY State Plane Long Island zone coordinate reference system (CRS), and
in decimal degrees based on the WGS1984 datum,
Plotting Coordinate Points as an Event Layer
The demonstration below walks through the following steps:
First, we highlight the four example fields in the table that will be plotted (latitude and longitude coordinates in feet (NAD83) and in decimal degrees (WGS84). The fields representing the projected NAD83 coordinates have the “_ft” suffix in their names. The fields representing the unprojected WGS84 coordinates have the “_dd” suffix in their names.
Next, we access the Make XY Events Layer tool by right-clicking on the table’s name in the Contents panel and choosing “Create Points from Table.” (Right-clicks are shown in yellow; left-clicks are shown in magenta.) The options within the dialogue box include…
The input table (preselected based on which table you right-clicked to access the dialog).
The X field and Y field: Specify which fields in the input table contain the coordinates you would like to map. You can also specify a Z field if your table includes three-dimensional point locations (e.g., a point cloud).
The name output point layer. An Event Layer is a temporary layer within the ArcGIS Pro project. It does not produce a new feature class. (See more on this below.)
The coordinate system of the values in your chosen fields.
In the demonstration, we access this dialogue and plot coordinates twice:
First: with the “_feet” fields and NAD83 NY State Plane Long Island zone CRS.
Second: with the “_dd” fields and WGS1984 CRS.
After coordinates are plotted and the new point layer is added to the map, we confirm the contents of its attribute table is identical to the contents of the input table (Table1, in this example) and confirm the CRS of the outputs by accessing the layers’ properties and inspecting their spatial reference.
Finally, we export a new feature class from one of the output layers by right-clicking on the layer’s name and clicking through Data > Export Features.
plotting XY coordinates from a table by using the Make XY Event Layer tool
Plotting Coordinate Points as a New Feature Class
If you want to plot points and create a new feature class in one step, you can use the XY Table to Point tool. Its dialogue box contains the same fields as the Make XY Events Layer with the added step of specifying the name and location of the new feature class file.
You can access this tool two ways:
Right-click on the layer name in the Contents panel and click through Create Points from Table > XY Table to Point.
From the Geoprocessing tools list or panel, you can search for it by name or navigate through the toolboxes: Data Management Tools > Features > XY Table to Point.
BONUS TIP: If you want to reproject your coordinates from the CRS represented in the values of the input table to another CRS, you can specify a different coordinate system for the output feature class under the Environments options in the dialogue. (This could save you the time of reprojecting the output dataset later, if the CRS represented in the table is not the datum or the units, for example, that you prefer.)