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This guide will provide step-by-step instructions on how to link tabular data, such as spreadsheets (CSV), to geospatial data in ArcGIS Online. This process is useful when you have geographic data (like coordinates, place names, or addresses) in a table and want to visualize it on a map. The central concept of this process is that having a unique identifier is crucial for accurately linking, managing, and preserving data integrity in GIS projects by ensuring each record is unique and properly associated with the correct spatial features.
2.1 To create a map in ArcGIS Online, click on the "Map" tab at the top of the screen. From here, you can add layers to your map, customize the appearance of your map, and add text and other elements.
2.2 Select Open in Map Viewer Classic
2.3 Visit the BTAA Geoportal (https://geo.btaa.org/) and search with the keyword "county boundary of Wisconsin". Open the result "County Boundaries [Wisconsin]{2015}". Click the Download button and select "Original Shapefile" to download the data. Save as "WI_Counties_2015.zip". This polygon feature class represents the boundaries of the 72 counties in Wisconsin. The data is derived from 1:24,000-scale sources. This feature class was last updated in June 2015.
Visit U.S. Census website (https://www.census.gov/en.html) and search the keywords "Wisconsin counties by population". Open the first result, "County Population Totals: 2010-2019" and click Wisconsin to download the table.
2.4 In ArcGIS Online, click on 
at the top of the screen and select "Add Layer from File", then choose the WI_Counties_2015.zip file downloaded in step 2.3
2.5 After clicking the Import Layer button, the "Change Style" window will show automatically. Select "Show location only" in "Choose an attribute to show" field:
2.6 Click “show table” button to open attribute table and get to know what information was included in the geospatial dataset:
2.7 Create a new CSV file and name it "Wisconsin Counties by Population.csv". Copy and paste the county name column and population in the 2019 column from the U.S. Census spreadsheet into this new CSV file. We need to use county name as the common field to link those two tables. Therefore, the names of counties in both tables should be exactly the same.
Add the “Wisconsin Counties by Population.csv” as a new layer and choose “None, add as table”
The following steps show how to link tabular data to the map.
3.1 Click Analysis and choose Join Features
3.2 Choose WI_Counties_2015 as the “Target Layer” and Wisconsin Counties by Population as the “Layer to Join to the Target Layer”. Choose the “COUNTY_Nam” and “County” as the fields to match. Choose a one-to-one join operation and name the result layer as Wisconsin Counties by Population.
3.3 Click the Run Analysis button, and a new layer based on population will be shown.
Symbolize the Wisconsin Counties by Population layer by clicking “change style” button
Choose the appropriate style to clearly show the population
3.4 Share or Print the Wisconsin Counties by Population map
