About editing features

Features are representations of real-world objects drawn on the map. Most maps contain a common set of features, such as polygons outlining lakes, lines representing streets, and points showing specific places. In addition to these common features, many maps use a focused set of features to help you perform a specific task. For example, features outlining recreation areas within a national park might highlight potential conflicts between humans and natural resources, and a city's evacuation routes, depicted as lines, can be a reference for emergency aid organizations. Map authors can display attributes with pop-up windows, change the symbology, and set the visibility range for the features.

You add a set of features as a layer to your map which can either be edited by you, the map author, or anybody viewing the map. Who can edit features depends on the type of feature layer. Features from a service layer are editable by anybody viewing the map, so they are useful when you want community input. For example, you might include a service layer that allows the birding community to post their bird sightings directly on the map and attach media files, such as photographs, audio files, and video files, to the specific observation points. Because these features are part of the service, any changes made on the map are immediately viewable to everybody who has access to the service. This type of layer is useful when you want others to edit your features, you have large amounts of data, and you have access to ArcGIS for Server.

When feature layers are stored in the map, only the map author can edit the features. In other words, your edits are saved when you save your map. These types of feature layers are useful for displaying information such as events happening within a community or inventory of oil production facilities. If you have features in delimited text file or GPX file, you can import them into your map. Feature layers that are part of the map are also an easy way to add a small number of features, for example, the swimming pools managed by your city's parks and recreation department and when you don't have access to ArcGIS for Server for creating feature service layers.