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Tutorial: Create a locator

In this exercise, you will create a single role locator with a primary role of Street Address, an alternate name table, a custom output field, and high precision.

Get the data

The data for this tutorial is available for download.

  1. Go to the data download page.

  2. Click the Download button, and save the file locally.

  3. Unzip the downloaded file.

Create a Street Address locator

In this exercise, you will build a Street Address locator using an Atlanta streets layer.

  1. Open ArcGIS Pro.

  2. Create a project from the Map template.

  3. Right-click Folders in the Catalog pane, and click Add Folder Connection.

  4. On the Add Folder Connection dialog box, browse to the geocoding tutorial folder and click OK.

  5. Expand Folders in the Catalog pane, and expand the geocoding tutorial folder that you added in the previous step.

  6. Expand the Evansville.gdb geodatabase inside of the geocoding tutorial folder.

  7. Drag the streets feature class inside the geodatabase onto the map.

    The map zooms to Evansville, Indiana, and a street layer is visible on the map. The streets layer is also shown in the Contents pane.

  8. Drag the altname table inside the geodatabase onto the map.

    The altname table is shown in the Contents pane.

  9. In the Geoprocessing pane, type create locator in the search box.

    If the pane is not open, on the Analysis tab, click Tools to open the Geoprocessing pane.

  10. Click the Create Locator tool to open the tool in the Geoprocessing pane.

  11. In the Create Locator tool, leave the Country or Region parameter as the default value of United States.

  12. Select streets from the drop-down menu for the Primary Table parameter.

    The layer is available in the drop-down menu because it has been added to the map.

  13. Select Street Address from the drop-down menu for the Role parameter.

    For more information on the other roles you can use to build locators, you can review the introduction to primary locator roles.

  14. Map the fields in the Field Mapping portion of the geoprocessing tool by selecting the appropriate field from the Alias Name drop-down menu for each relevant field name in the Role: Street Address section.

    1. For Left House Number From select FROM_LEFT.

    2. For Left House Number To select TO_LEFT.

    3. For Right House Number From select FROM_RIGHT.

    4. For Right House Number To select TO_RIGHT.

    5. For Prefix Direction select PREFIX_DIR.

    6. For Prefix Type select PREFIX_TYPE.

    7. For Street Name select STREET_NAME.

    8. For Suffix Type select SUFFIX_TYPE.

    9. For Suffix Direction select SUFFIX_DIR.

    10. For Left City select CITY_LEFT.

    11. For Right City select CITY_RIGHT.

    12. For Left State Abbreviation select STATE_LEFT.

    13. For Right State Abbreviation select STATE_RIGHT.

    14. For Left ZIP select ZIP_LEFT.

    15. For Right ZIP select ZIP_RIGHT.

    You can find more information about the types of values expected for each locator role field by reviewing locator role fields.

  15. Modify the Output Locator parameter to rename the output locator Evansville_Streets.

  16. Select English from the Language Code drop-down menu.

    You can run the tool now to create a Street Address locator for the city of Evansville, or you can continue with the next steps to add an alternate street name table.

Add an alternate street name table to your locator

Adding an alternate name table to your locator will allow for you to search for addresses using official or alternate street names, for instance Old 10th St, Orange St, or Old Country Rd. Learn more about how you can make use of alternate name tables with your own data.

  1. Select altname from the Alternate Name Tables drop-down menu.

    The table is available in the drop-down menu because you added it to the map.

  2. Select Alternate Street Name from the Role drop-down menu for the table.

  3. Map the fields in the Alternate Data Field Mapping portion of the geoprocessing tool by selecting the appropriate field from the Alias Name drop-down menu for each relevant field name in the Role: Alternate Street Name section.

    1. For Street Join ID select JOINID.

    2. For Prefix Direction select PRE_DIR.

    3. For Prefix Type select PRE_TYPE.

    4. For Street Name select ST_NAME.

    5. For Suffix Type select ST_TYPE.

    6. For Suffix Direction select SUF_DIR.

  4. Scroll back up to the Field Mapping for the Role: Street Address section.

    1. For Street Join ID select JOINID.

    You can run the tool now to create a Street Address locator for the city of Evansville with alternate street names, or you can continue with the next steps to add a custom output field.

Add a custom output field to your locator

You can select additional fields from the reference data to add them to the locator when the locator is created. These fields are used to provide additional information about the geocode result. The custom output fields do not participate in searching for the address or place but are returned with all geocode results in addition to any default output fields. The maximum number of custom output fields supported in a locator is 50.

  1. Type TRACT in the Custom Output Fields text box and press TAB to persist the role field.

    After typing the name to use as the custom output field, the new role field is automatically added to Field Mapping. You must assign a field from the reference data to the new set of role fields in Field Mapping.

  2. Scroll back up to the Role: Street Address section. In the Field Mapping parameter, map the fields for your custom output field.

    1. For TRACT_left select TRACT_FIPSLeft.

    2. For TRACT_right select TRACT_FIPSRight.

    The Custom output field drop-down in the Field mapping parameter. Assigning the field values TRACT_FIPSLeft and TRACT_FIPSRight to the custom output field you created in the tutorial.

    Optionally, you can run the tool now to create a Street Address locator for the city of Evansville with alternate street names and your configured custom output field, or you can continue with the next steps to create your locator with higher than default precision.

Update the precision settings of your locator

You can optionally set the precision of the locator. By default the locator is created with Global High Precision, which returns results that are within 0.5 meters of the original reference data globally. Global Extra High returns results that are within 1 centimeter of the original reference data globally and Local Extra High can return results with even more precision for local areas that are smaller in size.

  1. Select Local Extra High from the Precision Type drop-down menu.

    This increased precision level is suitable for local geocoding.

Run the tool to create your locator

  1. Click Run to create the Evansville Street Address locator.

    A warning message is returned after running the tool. This is expected because the JOINID field you selected for the altname table is not the optimal join strategy and can increase the size of your locator. This will not create problems in this tutorial with a small dataset and minimal joins.

    For more details about the warning, click WARNING 003106 under View Details. The Create Locator tool can show warning or error messages while using or after running the tool. Clicking the warning or error number opens a help topic that provides more details about the message.

    The locator is created in your project folder by default and is automatically added to the project. You can use it in the Locate pane, in the Geocode Table pane, and anywhere else you use locators.

    Tip:

    If the field mapping in the Create Locator tool becomes complex when creating a multirole locator, consider building a model with ModelBuilder to create locators. When you build a model, you can re-create the locator if the reference data changes, if you need to modify the locator by adding custom output fields, or if you want to share how the locator was created with a colleague. Another option for keeping track of the settings used to build the locator is to create the locator with the Create Locator tool once and save the previously executed tool as either a Python script or a geoprocessing package from the History pane on the Geoprocessing tab.

Using the steps above creates a locator based on the Street Address role that supports searching for addresses with house numbers, street intersections, street blocks, addresses with alternate street names, and only street names. This locator can be used to geocode the customers table that is included in the Geocode a table of addresses tutorial as well as search for addresses in the Locate pane. Search for the following addresses by either copying and pasting the address in the search box and pressing Enter or typing the address and selecting the suggestion that is displayed as you type.

Tip:

To disable all other locators in the project before using the Evansville Street Address locator, click the Options button , and uncheck the providers listed except for the Evansville Street Address locator.

  • Mystic Creek, Evansville

  • 1015 Walnut St, Evansville, 47714

  • Sycamore St E & Willow Rd S, Evansville, IN 47714

  • 900 block of E Cherry St, Evansville, 47713

  • 201 N Stockwell Rd, Evansville, 47715

Note:

You can also geocode global coordinates (latitude/longitude, Military Grid Reference System (MGRS), Decimal Degrees (DD), or United States National Grid (USNG)) using any locator created with the Create Locator tool. Support for coordinate searching is disabled or enabled under Categories to support on the Geocoding options page of the Locator Properties dialog box for the locator.