Create a WebMap in ArcGIS Online with the ArcGIS API for Python

Glen Bambrick

March 19, 2024
10:56 am
One Comment

Introduction

The ArcGIS API for Python is a powerful Python library that allows users to interact with and automate tasks in ArcGIS Online (or Portal). The API is excellent for programmatically creating, maintaining, and updating webmaps in ArcGIS Online. In this post we will focus on the first of those – creating! We will create a simple and empty webmap in ArcGIS Online.

arcgis modules

The API provides access to your organisations ArcGIS Online via the GIS class in the gis module. This GIS class is the gateway to ArcGIS Online. We will need to import the WebMap class to create a WebMap object. The WebMap class is a part of the mapping module. This mapping module provides components for working with 2D and 3D maps and scenes, and also includes classes for map layers such as the MapFeatureLayer, MapImageLayer, and VectorTileLayer.

				
					## import GIS which provides the gateway entry to your AGOL
from arcgis.gis import GIS
## import WebMap from the mapping module
from arcgis.mapping import WebMap

Accessing ArcGIS Online

Our first port of call is to access your ArcGIS Online via the GIS class. There are a handful of ways to achieve access, if you are logged into your ArcGIS Online in ArcGIS Pro you can simply use "home", otherwise, another common way is to provide the ArcGIS Online URL, followed by your username and password.

				
					## Access AGOL
agol = GIS("home")

				
					## Access AGOL
agol = GIS(
    url = "https://your_organisation.maps.arcgis.com/",
    username = "Your_Username",
    password = "Your_Password"
)

Create a WebMap Object

Creating the WebMap object is as straightforward as below. It is important to note that, here, we are merely creating a WebMap object in-memory. The WebMap has not yet been created as a WebMap content item in ArcGIS Online. We will save this object later in the workflow.

				
					## Instantiate a WebMap object
webmap = WebMap()

Define the WebMap Properties

Next, we want to define some of our WebMap properties such as the name (title) of the WebMap, a description, a summary, some tags, the initial extent, a basemap, and sure why not a thumbnail to be fancy. The WebMap object has a property called basemap to aid set our basemap of choice. We set a variable to define the path to our thumbnail which is a png file, and we create a dictionary with defined key, value pairs to aid with the other properties mentioned. The basemap property is the only one of these that is directly accessible through the WebMap object. The other properties are set on the WebMap item object once we save our WebMap object and it is then created and available in ArcGIS Online.

				
					## Set the Basemap
webmap.basemap = "gray-vector"

## WebMap thumbnail filepath
thumbnail = r"C:\path\to\thumbnail.png"

## WebMap Item Properties
wm_item_dict = {
    "title" : "A WebMap Item Created with the API",
    "snippet" : "This is a summary created with the API",
    "description" : "This is a description created with the API",
    "tags" : "python,injected,tags", # ["python", "injected", "tags"]
    "extent" : {'xmin': -9.1, 'ymin': 53.255, 'xmax': -9.0, 'ymax': 53.3, 'spatialReference': {'wkid': 4326}}, # Galway
}

Save the WebMap Object as a Content Item

All there is left to do is to save our WebMap object as WebMap content item. The WebMap object has a method called save to perform this action for us. Our dictionary defining the WebMap Item properties is the only required parameter, but we also want to use the thumbnail parameter.

				
					## Save the WebMap to AGOL as a content item
webmap.save(
    item_properties = wm_item_dict,
    thumbnail = thumbnail
)

Check it out in ArcGIS Online

The WebMap Content Item has been created in our home folder – this is the folder named the same as your username.

We can see all the components that we set; the title, description, summary, tags, thumbnail, and basemap.

And if we open up the WebMap we can see that it contains our gray-vector basemap as the only layer and zoomed to Galway in Ireland. We have successfully created a WebMap content item in ArcGIS Online using the ArcGIS API for Python to create a WebMap object and saving with desired properties.

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All the code in one place

You can find the entire code workflow below with links to important components in the documentation that were used.

				
					from arcgis.gis import GIS
from arcgis.mapping import WebMap

################################################################################
## API Reference Links:
##  https://developers.arcgis.com/python/api-reference/arcgis.gis.toc.html#gis
##  https://developers.arcgis.com/python/api-reference/arcgis.mapping.toc.html#webmap
##  https://developers.arcgis.com/python/api-reference/arcgis.mapping.toc.html#arcgis.mapping.WebMap.basemap
##  https://developers.arcgis.com/python/api-reference/arcgis.mapping.toc.html#arcgis.mapping.WebMap.save
##
## Description:
##  Create a WebMap with a selected basemap and without any layers.
##
## API Version: 2.2.0.1
##
################################################################################

## Access AGOL
agol = GIS("home")

## Instantiate a WebMap object"""
webmap = WebMap()

## Set the Basemap
webmap.basemap = "gray-vector"

## WebMap thumbnail path
thumbnail = r"C:\path\to\thumbnail.png"

## WebMap Item Properties
wm_item_dict = {
    "title" : "A WebMap Item Created with the API",
    "snippet" : "This is a summary created with the API",
    "description" : "This is a description created with the API",
    "tags" : "python,injected,tags", # ["python", "injected", "tags"]
    "extent" : {'xmin': -9.1, 'ymin': 53.255, 'xmax': -9.0, 'ymax': 53.3, 'spatialReference': {'wkid': 4326}}, # Galway
}

## Save the WebMap to AGOL as a content item
wm_item = webmap.save(item_properties=wm_item_dict, thumbnail=thumbnail)

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