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Geolocating is the process of plotting tabular data to your map,
using addresses or longitude and latitude coordinates.
In this example, we will geolocate the locations of businesses
in the Peel Census Division from an Excel Table in ArcMap 10.
In ArcMap, let's open a data layer of your area of interest.
Check that it has an undefined projection by locating the files of your data layer
in your documents and deleting the '.prj' file.
Click 'Yes'.
Let's add that same data layer by selecting the 'Add Data' icon,
locating the file, and clicking 'Add'.
Now, let’s add the data table of Peel businesses by clicking on the ‘Add Data’ icon,
locating your file, selecting the correct excel sheet containing the data, and clicking 'Add'.
Right click on the table in the ‘Table of Contents’, and select ‘Display XY Data…’.
Ensure that beside the X Field, longitude is selected.
Ensure that beside the Y Field, latitude is selected.
Here, we can chose a Coordinate System for the table,
by selecting the 'Edit...' button.
Click ‘Select…’
Let's Change it to a Geographic Coordinate System.
Select 'North American', 'NAD1983'.
'Add', and then 'OK'.
Click 'Ok' again as needed.
You will see that the Business points have been added
in the ‘Table of Contents’ as Events.
To view it in the data view, right click on the data layer
and select ‘Zoom to layer’.
The points are ‘events’, but are not entirely a data layer yet.
To save them as a shapefile, right click on the events, select ‘Data’, ‘Export Data’.
Ensure that ‘All Features’ is selected.
Give your new shapefile an appropriate name.
Click 'Ok'.
The new shapefile is added to your map.
Remove ‘Events’ from the Table of Contents.
You might notice that the points have not ideally matched up within the Peel data layer.
This might be due to the projection of the data frame.
Right click on the data frame, and click on Data Frame Properties.
Change the projection to 'NAD1983 UTM Zone 17'. Click 'Ok'.
You can now see that the business points are overtop of the Peel data layer.
For further instruction in ArcMap, please visit our video archives.