Learn essential demographic data skills

Data is everywhere. It is both a part of you and how you perceive and navigate the world. This tutorial series introduces foundational components of how to find, work with, and talk about data.

Data is in the fabric and detail of the human experience, and it is created every second of every day.

Consider that where you live, your age, occupation, education, the languages you speak, and any other detail of your life can be broken down into a data component. Businesses, scientific laboratories, governments, and other entities generate, collect, and analyze data. When we consider the vastness and complexity of data available, it can feel overwhelming.

In reality, data is simply a collection of facts. Both consciously and unconsciously, you absorb data, compare it, sort it, and use it to make decisions. Through this process of collection and organization, data is transformed from chaos into meaningful information.

Data is a foundation of how you function both as an individual and within your community, on local and global scales. Learning how to communicate with data is like learning a new language: you can start with basic building blocks and work your way up to recognizing patterns and systems.

Once you become fluent in working with data, you can answer complex questions and convey the value of your discoveries. When you are able to find meaning in data and share this with others, you can better understand yourself and the world around you. 

Finding high-quality data can be a time-consuming process, but it doesn’t have to be. Esri gathers data from a global community of GIS users and makes it publicly available in  ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World .

ArcGIS Living Atlas includes an expansive collection of layers. These layers allow you to access and visualize data pertaining to people, landscapes, infrastructure, resources, and many subject areas in between.

Layers come in different formats based on their subject matter and how the data is collected and stored. Imagery layers, for example, can include colorized satellite images of the earth's surface. Feature layers are made up of points, lines, and polygons (enclosed shapes) that represent real-world objects and places.

ArcGIS Living Atlas is free to explore, and much of the content is publicly available. The collection includes several top-level categories, each with their own subcategories providing additional layers of specificity. For example, the People category includes subcategories such as Population, Income, Health, and Education.

Exploring ArcGIS Living Atlas might feel overwhelming. Start by filtering by a specific region or top-level category (such as Trending or Environment) to narrow your search results to a more manageable scope. Or search by keyword if you have a particular topic in mind, such as migration.

Get to know your way around the data in ArcGIS Living Atlas by exploring content types across the regions of the world. Filter the search results using the All time drop-down menu to see what has been published or updated in the last week, month, year, or during a custom date range.

You can also narrow the search results to Esri-only content or authoritative-only content. Esri-only content is created and published by teams at Esri, and authoritative-only content might come from Esri, a government agency, or another entity.

Each piece of content in the search results has its own overview page that tells you what it is, when and by whom it was published, when it was last updated, and how many times it has been viewed. Additional information—such as the terms of use, tags, and credits—is also found here. The options for viewing, exporting, and sharing the layer are found in the top right corner of the overview page.

The  USA Structures layer , for example, is a data layer published by  Esri Federal Data . This item shows the outline of every structure in the U.S. with a footprint greater than 450 square feet. Each footprint is color-coded by occupancy type (government, commercial, education, residential, industrial, and other).

Consider these questions about the map:

• Where is the data coming from?
• What occupies the space where there are no buildings?
• Why are there straight lines in some places and no clear patterns in others?
• How recently was the data collected, and is it still relevant for use?
• Could the data be biased in any way?

When it comes to data, it’s important to be curious! Explore your options and ask questions to make sure that you are using the best resources available.

While the overview page for this item provides some answers, you may need to dig deeper and consider adding other data to the map to tell a more complete story.

If you're ready to dive into the data, get to know ArcGIS Living Atlas with the  Get started with ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World  tutorial.

In this section, you learned about the fundamentals of data:  

• How data relates to information
• Different types of data and how data is organized 
• Thinking critically about data and using data to communicate 
• Navigating the ArcGIS Living Atlas data collection
• Adding layers to a map as a means of visualizing data

In the  next section of this tutorial series , you will use this data literacy lens to focus on a genre of people-based data known as demographic data.